Satellite
by Azula Always Lies
Summary: After the end of Citadel, Azula has to learn how to navigate life outside the asylum - and with Ursa back in the palace and Zuko on the throne, it's not going to be easy. Sometimes, it feels like Katara's her only friend. But they're just friends...right?
1. Azula Integrates

So here we are again, at the beginning of a new adventure. For anyone who's not already aware (though if you've glanced at the summary, you should be), this story is the sequel to _Citadel_, and it won't make much sense unless you've already read that. It continues Azula and Katara's relationship after the events of _Citadel_, with Azula out of the asylum and trying to readjust to normal life, not to mention carve out a new place in the world; I'd say it begins a month or so after she's come home. No more than a month, anyway. Maybe more like three weeks.

Just a few things, before we get started here: if you in fact did not read the summary, or my note at the end of _Citadel_, this is an Azutara fic. As in, they were friends before; at some point in this story, they're going to end up as more. How that'll happen, we'll find out. Whether it'll last or not, we'll find out. The story's rated T for a reason – on the one hand, the people we're dealing with are young and horny and I'm not just going to have them pecking chastely with closed lips. On the other hand, this story isn't about sex, and I'm not writing smut scenes. So when the romance rolls around, you can expect some good old-fashioned makin' out, plus a few non-explicit references if I'm feeling particularly scandalous, but don't be following this expecting lemons. Of those, there will be none.

Also, if you're not brain-dead, you'll notice that in this first chapter, Azula mentions reuniting with her mother. Her relationship with Ursa will be a plot point, as the story goes on, but the logistics of Ursa's return won't be; I figure _how_ she ended up back at the palace isn't really Azula's concern, so much as what's going to happen now that she's there. In other words, I'm pretty much assuming that Zuko & Co. went on the whole searching-for-Ursa journey awhile back, and it's basically old news now.

Finally, like _Citadel_, this story is named for an Anna Nalick song (on Youtube as /watch?v=E0w3kOIpIsY). _A lonely song of freedom rings in hope of someone listening…_

**1. Azula Integrates**

"I hate this. I just—I _really_ hate this."

I prowled the room like a caged beast, swiping at invisible bars. I was meant to be getting ready, but couldn't seem to sit still; hair half-combed, I'd quit my vanity, in favor of stalking back and forth across the rug. "Calm down," she said, annoyingly cavalier. "It's not a big deal."

"It _is_ a big deal. You don't know." I frowned at her, perched cross-legged on my bed. Cheerful as ever. _She _wasn't the one who had to face them. "Maybe we should just postpone it. Tell them—I don't know, tell them I'm sick."

"Yeah, sick with a case of chicken."

"I am _not_ chicken," I snapped. She raised an eyebrow, and I pushed my hands through my hair. "It's just—what if they're _mad_ at me?"

"I already told you they're not."

"Well, you'd better be right. Because if they're expecting me to come in there _groveling_, if—if they think I'm going to _apologize_—"

She rolled her eyes. "Azula, they've known you since you were three. I doubt they expect you to apologize."

I sniffed. "Good. Because I'm not going to."

"All right, then."

"Fine."

Of everything I'd had to do to integrate, reunions were the worst. They were awkward and stilted and unpleasant. So far, my dealings with Zuko had been brief, mostly in passing; we'd barely exchanged two words. I'd had to endure him more initially, while Katara argued my case – and technically, I was now living in _his_ palace – but otherwise we kept our distance. And Father was out of the picture. But seeing Mother again—it was horrific. Her with her arms around me, tight enough to crack bone. Her tears in my hair, her voice in my ear, telling me how _sorry_ she was, how much she _loved_ me still, how glad she was that I was _better _now, as if I'd been sick. Her scent like poison in the air. And me just _standing_ there, still and stick-straight, eyes made of glass and mouth full of cotton. I didn't hug her back. I didn't say a word. I didn't even ask _why are you here, _though I'd have liked to know. All I did was stand there, like a block of wood, and try not to think about the woman with yellow eyes.

And now I was supposed to see Mai, and Ty Lee, and it was for _closure_, and it would be _healing_, and there was nothing in the world I wanted less. I despised the whole business, reunions, integration—that was what Katara called it, _integration_, this process by which I would return to the world less terrifying than before. I played along just because it beat the alternative. And because it meant I got to be around her – this maddening, mystifying person who had somehow become my only friend, and the only one who even came close to getting me.

I sighed and sat back down at my vanity, staring myself in the face. I looked tired. "Are you _sure_ they want to see me?" I asked her, when she came up behind me.

"If they didn't, they wouldn't be here." She took an enamel comb from the dressing table. "Mai and Ty Lee are your _friends_, Azula," she said gently, combing out the last of the tousles in my hair. "And the past is behind us now. It'll only be weird if you make it weird." Pulling my hair up into a knot, she tied it with a ribbon and opened a hand for my hairpin, glistening on the table next to my combs. I gave it to her, and she slid it into place. "There. Now you look like yourself."

"Wonderful." I couldn't keep the edge from my voice. Hauling myself to reluctant feet, I headed towards the door. "Let's get this over with."

For the most part, I kept to my bedroom, plus the suite of rooms surrounding it. I had everything I needed here – a washroom, a study, a balcony that looked out on the garden – and a mind to avoid my brother, so I didn't spend much time anywhere else. I was used to small spaces, anyway. And I enjoyed having a domain, a little kingdom all my own; it may not have been much, but it was _mine,_ and no one came in unless I said so. Or—unless Katara showed them in, to a parlor off the bedroom, and sat them down with a plate of cookies and tea. _Ugh. _I was pathetic.

"Azula!" The second I showed my face, Ty Lee flung herself at me, like nothing had happened and not a day had passed. Caught me in a spine-snapping hug. I saw shades of Mother, for a second, and did my best to hug back; it was clumsy and stiff, but I tried. "It's been _so long_!" she cried, taking me by the shoulders, pulling back to catch my eyes. "Are you okay?"

"She's fine, Ty Lee. They let her out of the nuthouse, right?" _Beautiful. So that's how it's going to be._ "I'd hate to think they did shoddy work."

"Well yeah, but you don't have to be so _mean_ about it," Ty Lee said, and grabbed my hand, and tugged me over to the sofa across from theirs. "Don't pay any attention to her. You want some tea?"

She didn't wait for an answer. Before I could speak, she'd bounced back onto the cushion beside Mai, and poured me a cup of tea; she passed it to me and I took it, for lack of anything else to do. Already, I felt at loose ends. Restless, nervous, and yet insensibly still—not only on edge but frozen there, staring at them with doll's eyes. Almost unsure they were real. They seemed so much _the same_, though everything was different – though _I_ was different, they were the same as I'd left them on the platform, the same friends I'd known so long and lost so fast. _Were_ they my friends? I hadn't thought so, not anymore at least, but here they were and it was like a memory come to life. Like nothing had ever changed.

I was surprised to find myself still somewhat _angry _at them, if only in a subconscious, visceral sense. Less surprised to see them looking strangely at me, after some time had passed and I'd said nothing. _Whatever, _I thought snidely to myself. _I just got out of the _nuthouse_. I have a right to be weird. _

"So," I said at last, when the silence was too loud even for me. "This is awkward."

Mai snorted. "You're telling me."

"Oh, come on, guys! It's not so bad as all that." Ty Lee's glance flicked between the both of us. "We're still friends, aren't we?"

"Are we?" Mai asked.

I shrugged. "She has a point."

"Of _course_ we are. What happened—it was _ages _ago, and it's water under the bridge now. And besides…" Her voice trailed off and she looked at me, wearing a hopeful half-smile. "You're different now. Right?"

I couldn't help but scowl at that. I knew it was true, to an extent, but I still resented being told that I'd so _needed_ to change – that what I was before was just that bad. "Maybe. Different how?"

She sort of shrugged. "I don't know. Less scary?"

Mai made a weak attempt to hold back laughter. I might've laughed myself, if the whole thing hadn't been so desperately stupid. _So this is what my life's been reduced to, _I thought with no small amount of distaste, eyes rolling towards the ceiling. _Being _less scary_ than before. _"Sure," I conceded, albeit grudgingly, mouth flattened into a frown. "Less scary. If you want to think of it that way."

"Great!" Ty Lee chirped, and then became suddenly serious, amending, "I mean, really. It's great. You know, in spite of everything, we—we've always been your friends, Azula. We've always wanted what's best for you. And we've been so _worried_ about you, all this time – I wanted to come see you at the asylum, really I did, but Katara wouldn't let me. She kept saying you weren't ready, and I just—"

"Yes, we know, Ty Lee, _we know_," Mai cut in, a merciful gesture at that point. "You love Azula to pieces, and you're just heartbroken that you couldn't go to gawk at her in a straitjacket." She rolled her eyes, and I cast her as grateful a glance as I could muster. "Wasn't there something you wanted to ask her, too?"

"Oh!" Just like that, Ty Lee brightened, clapping her hands. "That's right! I wanted to ask you to come to the ball!"

"The _what_?"

"The ball!" she enthused. "You know, like a dance! It's here at the palace, in a week, and we think it would be just _wonderful_ if you would come. It's going to be so much fun!"

Somewhere between confused and vaguely nauseated, I furrowed my brow. "Why would there be a ball at the palace?"

"Um—well, it's to celebrate something—decolonization, I think. Yeah! We just got rid of the last of the Fire Nation colonies, and it's a big step and all, so we're going to have a great big party in honor of it. Zuko said we could!"

I raised an eyebrow. "_Zuko's_ throwing a _ball_?"

"No, Ty Lee and the Makeup Brigade are throwing a ball. Zuko's just being a good sport." A wry smile slid across Mai's face. "You should come with us, Azula. Like Ty Lee said – it'll be _fun_."

"_Super_ fun," Ty Lee added. "Besides, we already asked Katara, and _she_ said—"

"You _asked_ her?" Without thinking, I cut her off, slightly incredulous. "What do you mean, you _asked_ her? It's not like she's my keeper."

Ty Lee cocked her head. "It's not?"

"No!"

They exchanged a glance. Again, one corner of Mai's mouth twitched upward, as if she were trying to suppress a chuckle; Ty Lee just looked confused. "Anyway," she plowed on, regardless, "_she _said you would go with us."

"Did she?" I answered, narrowing my eyes, in a tone unmistakably sour with dismay.

"Yeah!"

Well. If it was unmistakable, count on Ty Lee to mistake it. She fixed wide eyes on me, innocent, expectant, all sugar and sunshine; Mai, smirking silently beside her, was of no help. If there were ever a moment for sighing, this was it. "Great."


	2. Azula and the Lightning Bugs

Thanks for the reviews, everybody! ^_^ Keeeeep it up, please and thanks.

Aurelia le: You make a lot of salient points, and as much as I'd like to go through and address each one in detail, I lack the space and the time. So I'll try to sum it up as best I can. Mai, as will soon become evident, is still involved with Zuko; my idea is that while she's not exactly eager to be friends with Azula (and I didn't think it came across that way in the first chapter), she's had enough time and perspective not to be actively angry with her anymore. After all, she's been living in a palace with her boyfriend the Firelord for the past God-knows-how-many years, while Azula's been rotting in a prison cell. And I would think she's matured enough to understand that a lot of what Azula did _was_ based on her being not all there upstairs, and that resenting her isn't going to help anything.

As for the omission of the reunion scenes with Ursa and Zuko, you said that "perhaps you felt the elements you left out would detract from the atmosphere or the message of this first chapter," and that's right on the money – I did. I didn't want the first five chapters of this story to be consumed with the logistics of _how _Azula ended up back in the palace, or her first few days there. I thought it was believable enough that Zuko would be willing to let her come home with enough convincing from Katara (and there will be a few more details on that later, though nothing earth-shaking or anything). I understand that maybe it wasn't believable to you, and that that was disappointing, and I really am sorry – but I just didn't feel it was necessary to write those scenes. I'm trying to approach this story from an "Azula's home – now what?" perspective, and I thought that belaboring her actual return wouldn't be conducive to that end.

Amy Raine: There will absolutely be more Ursa/Azula interaction later on; in fact, I'm planning on their relationship being sort of a secondary plotline, though that's as much as I can say at the moment. In any case, be assured that I wouldn't make a point of mentioning she'd come back if I weren't going to do something with her. ;) And Katara and Aang are still together. I'm not planning on having him make an appearance, since he's not really important to the story – to anyone who was wondering, there will be more characters here than in Citadel, but the bulk of the interaction will still take place between Katara and Azula – but I'll try to work the details of everyone's living situations into the next couple of chapters.

And to everyone and anyone: what Katara says at the end of this chapter – I've thought about it _way_ too much. But it's true, you know? He _could_ call her Zuzu. For that matter, he could call her Lala, like the yellow Teletubby. But I guess then she could call him Koko, and that's not a can of worms I want to crack.

**2. Azula and the Lightning Bugs**

"You told them I would go to a _ball_?"

Katara grinned. "Sure I did," she said sweetly, feigning innocence at first. "What's the big deal? It'll be fun!"

For a second, I stood there and stared at her, completely still. Partly disbelieving, and partly wishing this were harder to believe. Partly aware that it was my fault, for forgetting how frustrating she could be. "If I hear the word _fun_ one more time," I said slowly, looking her dead in the eyes, "someone is going to die."

It was evening now, and she and I were in the garden. The sun had gone down, the palace had grown quiet, and lanterns were lit by the pond; the water, like a mirror, threw back their shine. Here in the lamplit night we were alone, save for the lightning bugs. I could yell at her here, demand an explanation, hound her down the path when she wandered away—be myself, or at least something like it. As opposed to who I'd been with them.

"So how did it go?" she said breezily when I caught her, down by the cherry-blossom trees. "Aside from the horrors of being asked to parties, I mean."

"Don't try to change the subject," I snapped. "What business do you have speaking for me?"

She sighed. "I wasn't _speaking for you, _Azula. I just said I _thought_ you'd go." Tossing me a meaningful glance, she slipped away yet again to walk the path, and I had little choice but to follow. "And I think you should. You know, in the interest of—"

"—_integration_," I said before she could. "I know, I _know. _Follow the herd. Suck up and blend in. Try not to be a monster for once." The words slid out with a sneer. In my head, in my throat, echoes of the day welled up like vomit; I only wished it were so easy to get rid of them. "They think you're in _charge_ of me. Mai and Ty Lee. Did you know that?"

"No." She cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I _mean_ that they think you're in charge of me, Katara. I can't make it much simpler than that." I shrugged, but she just kept looking at me, waiting for me to go on. "It's like they think you're my _mom_ or something. Like they have to ask _you_ before _I_ do anything, and for that matter, so do I. Like—like just because you brought me here, you _own_ me, as if that makes any sense."

We paused awhile at the pond's edge, beside a lantern burning low. As did the others, it hung from the branch of a tree, like a little glowing house. "Well, it kind of _does _make sense," she said after awhile. From the way she spoke, I could tell she was choosing her words carefully, for fear that I'd take them the wrong way. "I mean…up until just now, I _was_ in charge of you. The asylum staff put your case entirely in my hands."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you saying they're _right_?"

"Of course not." She looked at me as if I should know better. "Your life is your own and so are your choices, for better or for worse. I'm just saying to cut them some slack."

I let out my breath and gazed down at the water, still as a plate of cut crystal. In it I could see myself, yellow eyes bright in the darkness, and I could see her beside me; I could see the lantern's light as it died. After a moment, I opened its glass door. Reaching inside, I pressed the candle's wick between two fingers, and a second later felt it burn. "I don't know," I said quietly, closing the door, watching the tiny lick of flame flicker and flash. "It was strange. The whole thing, the whole time, it was like—I don't know them anymore. Nothing's the same."

"Mai and Ty Lee mean well." She touched my shoulder, and I stiffened but I didn't push her off. The more time I spent with Katara, the more I realized how much she liked to touch people, just as a matter of course; I was just glad she wasn't trying to hug me. "They want to give you a chance. But you have to understand that it's hard for them, trying to relate to you this way—they've spent their whole lives being _beneath_ you, and being _afraid_ of you, and they don't know how to just be your friends. They don't know what to expect. It'll get better, you just—you've got to give them time."

I had no answer for that. There was a lot I could've said, I guess, but I didn't say any of it. Instead, I turned from the lantern to watch the lightning bugs, winking on and off over the pond; two darted close to me and it was as if they were speaking in code. A language all their own. I felt a surge of vague, sourceless envy, tight like a chain around my neck—but seconds later it was gone, and the lightning bugs were dancing inches from my nose. I fanned them absently away. When they circled back, I did it again. The third time, I flicked a spark between them, blinking blue like a break in their dialogue.

"Is it really necessary to fry the fireflies?" Katara said pointedly, as they zipped back over the pond.

"Yes. And they're not fireflies, they're lightning bugs." I turned to look at her and cocked my head, a thought having just then occurred to me. "I don't know how to dance."

She blinked. Then – when she realized what I meant – she smiled. "I'll teach you."

"Yeah—what I meant was, I don't know how to dance because I _don't_ dance. Not ever. No one in the Fire Nation does."

"They do now." She was disturbingly cheerful about the whole thing, as though dancing were something I should _want_ to do. I'd always figured it a waste of time – a dance, to me, had always seemed like a kata, only much sillier and far less useful. "You've been gone a long time, you know. Things have changed."

"Right." I drew that word out, dry as sun-cracked clay. Rolling my eyes back towards the water, I glimpsed another lightning bug, and heard her groan when I caught it between my hands.

"I swear, sometimes I wish you were still in a straitjacket. Let the poor thing go." Still far from wild about taking orders, I didn't exactly obey, until she reached out and opened my hands herself—just peeled them apart long enough for the lightning bug to flicker free, swooning and spiraling into the sky. I scowled at her, and she smirked at me, and taking me by the wrist she tugged me over to a wooden bench, nestled in the rhododendron trees. "Listen," she said when we sat down, looking me earnestly in the eyes. "I have a proposal for you. If you're restless enough to stand around tormenting fireflies – sorry, _lightning bugs_ – you must have energy to spare, so we're going to put it to much better use. You're going to go to that ball in a week, and you're going to look pretty and be nice, and you're going to have _fun_ if it kills you—and before then, _I'm_ going to teach _you_ how to dance. And whether you want to or not, you're going to like it."

I snorted. "So much for making my own choices. What happens if I say no?"

"Come on. After everything I've done for you? I uprooted my _entire life _to get you here, to this point, and you can't give up _one night_ of yours?" She was right, of course, but I didn't have to like it. I crossed my arms and turned up my nose. "Besides," she added, undeterred. "_Zuko_ doesn't want you to come."

"He doesn't?"

Automatically, I warmed to the thought. I knew it was what she wanted – I could hear the wheedling drawl in her voice – but that didn't make it less attractive. "Of course not. Ty Lee already asked him; he _hates_ the thought of you being there." She grinned. "Now you can't tell me _that_ doesn't sound like fun."

She was right. I didn't particularly want to get dressed up, and I didn't relish the thought of trying to make nice, and I _especially_ didn't want to dance—but I enjoyed getting under Zuko's skin, as much now as ever. As ever, the appeal of any given thing grew when I knew he wished I'd stay away from it. "Well, that does change things," I sighed, sitting back on the bench. "I mean, if _Zuzu_ doesn't want me there—I'm pretty much obligated to go."

Katara laughed and shook her head, casting her eyes towards the sky. "I knew that'd get you."

"Don't let it go to your head."

"Oh, don't worry. I won't." Sort of thoughtlessly, she tipped her head back and reached up to pluck a rhododendron, hanging from the trees in purple clusters. "Have you ever considered," she said, twirling the flower in one hand, "that if he wanted to, he could call you Zuzu, too?"

"What?"

"I'm just saying. I mean, I know he hates it when you call him that, and I know you do it _because_ he hates it, but when you think about it—you have the same sound in your name. Do you suppose you'd like it so much if the shoe were on the other foot?"

I wrinkled my nose. "He wouldn't dare."

"Yeah. You're probably right." She flashed me a sidelong smile, toothless and sly. "I might, though."

"And _I_ might have to put a bolt of lightning through your head."

"Might you?" I sneered at her, and she sneered at me, and with a chuckle she tossed the rhododendron my way. In the windless night, it drifted into my lap, a bright gauzy bell the color of a plum. "In that case, maybe I won't call you Zuzu. Maybe I'll just call you lightning bug."


	3. Azula in the Ballroom

Ooh, gurlfweeend…we're getting serious now.

**3. Azula in the Ballroom**

Whatever the setup was at that point – whatever had become of my arrangement with Katara, the commitment she'd made so long ago – it was less formal than before. I saw her every day, but not on a schedule. She had no official capacity in my life. Well, she sort of did; Zuko had lain down all sorts of conditions, for my living outside the asylum, and one of them involved her being responsible for me. She'd vouched for me, so if I screwed up it was on her head. She had to make sure my "progress" continued, which meant being with me on a regular basis, and living in the palace.

Not that she wasn't used to that. When she'd first set out to try healing me, and realized it wasn't a short-term kind of thing, Zuko had given her a guest suite. She'd lived there the whole time, often in the company of her friends – they'd made it sort of their base of operations, seeing as she and Mai and Zuko were there – and now she lived here still, to keep tabs on me and help me integrate. She kept saying it was because we were _friends_, and she _liked_ spending time with me; I got the feeling everyone else saw it as therapy.

In any case, living just down the hall gave her a certain advantage. It made it hard for me to avoid her, anyway. The day after our talk in the garden, she came and found me and wouldn't leave until I agreed to come with her, to one of the palace's ballrooms – not the largest one, where the dreaded event would be held, but a smaller auxiliary hall. Personally, I couldn't believe the palace even had _a _ballroom, much less more than one. I'd lived here fourteen years and never seen them.

"Ugh." When she opened the doors, we realized why. The room hadn't been touched in _decades. _Like the library at the asylum, it was blanketed in dust, and cloaked in cobwebs. The floor was marble, emblazoned with a huge medallion, but it could hardly be seen beneath the grime. The paneling was worn, the drapes were tattered; shards of the insignia mosaics littered the ground. Even the chandelier was rusted, groaning at the end of its chain. "No wonder no one dances in the Fire Nation. Your ballrooms are disgusting."

I'd thought that might get me out of this, but no such luck. She went to the windows and drew the curtains, letting in the first light this room had seen in years; bathed in sunshine, things looked all the worse. Sallow and skeletal, nothing shining where it should've. I didn't like dancing, and I didn't like ballrooms, and sympathy had never been my strong suit – but even I couldn't help but pity this place. "This is depressing."

"No excuses. Come here." I frowned, but did as I was told, following her to the center of the floor. "Now, here's how this is going to go. I'm going to show you a step, and you're going to copy it. And then we're going to do it together." She grinned. "Sounds fun, right?"

"Absolutely. If by _fun,_ you mean _ridiculous."_

Ignoring that comment entirely, she placed a hand on her hip and studied me for a second – perhaps ruminating on the finer points of this travesty. "Ground rules," she said. "You can't pass. You do everything, even if you think it's dumb, even if you think it's _beneath_ you; trust me, it's not. No whining, no griping, no running commentary on how stupid this is. No turning up your nose and walking out. And most importantly, none of this perfection business. Dancing isn't a science – it's an art."

I eyed her doubtfully. "Remind me again why I agreed to do this?"

"Because you want to integrate. Because you want to bug Zuko. Because you owe me, whether you like it or not." She paused and sort of smiled, a knowing twitch playing at her mouth. "But mostly because you trust me. And you know that when I tell you to do something, you're always glad you did it."

So we danced. It was probably the least dignified thing I'd ever done – aside from the waterbending forms, and of course the episode with the grate – but I did it, and I didn't snark. Not much, anyway. She showed me a handful of stupid steps with stupid names, fashioned after a number of stupid animals; I didn't know what kind of moron based a dance on a camelephant, but it looked as foolish as it sounded. Then there were the waltzes, the legitimate ballroom dances, those that swirled and dipped and slid. That were less like beasts and more like wind, or a river. Those were pretty, when she did them, but that stood to reason – she was a waterbender, so grace came easily to her. The river was in her nature. She was fluid, and she was elegant, and I was both disinclined and ill-equipped to be either.

We danced with invisible partners. She knew I didn't like to be touched, if she could suppress her need to touch everyone in sight, so while we waltzed we held the hands of shadows; our partners were imagined and so was our music, or at least hers was. Sometimes she would hum, to match the beat of her steps, and sometimes she would sing under her breath, but I kept time with silence. There was no music in my head. We'd never really _done_ music in the Fire Nation, at least not in the palace. The last song I remembered hearing was my own song, with its chime like a crystal bell. _Where have you gone, beautiful girl?_

I don't know how long the lesson went, before she stopped. I'd resolved to not count the minutes, to keep time flowing as it does unwatched, and for me it could have been hours or days; I knew only that at some point, we just ground to a halt. I suppose she only knew so many steps. "Well, that's about it," she said, sounding a little lost, as if it were actually disappointing for her to have to stop. "That's all I know. Except for slow-dancing, I guess."

"What?"

"Slow-dancing. You know, you do it with a partner—you just kind of hold each other and move. It's usually…well, it's supposed to be romantic."

"The kind of dance you would do with…"

My voice sort of faded on me, mouth loath to form the word. She raised an eyebrow and picked up my slack. "Aang?" Instead of nodding, I curled my lip. "Well, he _is_ my boyfriend. So yeah." Shaking her head at me, she made a noise like she wanted to laugh but thought she shouldn't, and extended a hand palm-up. "Come on. I'll show you."

I didn't see the harm in that. Maybe I should've – could've stopped the whole thing before it started – but I didn't, because what was one more dance? It couldn't be any worse than the others. So I took her hand and she pulled me close to her, not close enough to touch, never close enough to touch—just close enough for a thin shaft of light to fall between us, like a bar separating me from her. "First you put your hands on my shoulders," she said, and I did that. "Then I put mine on your hips."

She half-smiled and began to sway. "Now, if we were at the ball," she said dreamily, "you'd be dancing with a boy. He'd take your hand and lead you onto the floor, right as the band was playing slow. He'd tell you how pretty you are. He'd hold you close, look into your eyes, and at the right moment…at just the right moment, as the song came to an end…he'd lean in…and kiss you."

That was when I saw.

I don't know exactly how it happened, or why. I'm not even sure what it was I felt. Just that I felt it when she fell silent, the fairy tale still a ghost on her lips—when my gaze met hers, in the electric space of an inch, and I realized I couldn't look away. It was something about her hands on my hips, her mouth so near to mine. Something about the warmth of her skin. Something clicked and suddenly I saw it, I saw _her_, for what felt like the first time. I saw her as someone new, rich with possibility; I looked at her and she was fascinating, a thing I wanted to know, a thing to crack open and consume. I looked at her and her eyes were brilliant, blue as tourmaline. The kind of blue that could bear you away.

I could feel her breathe. Her mouth, so near to mine—I could almost taste it, and I might have if she hadn't pulled away. If the moment hadn't shattered, like a sheet of glass, when she blinked and broke off blushing. I'd never seen her blush before. But her cheeks reddened and she mumbled something, maybe _I should go; _before I knew it, she was gone. The ballroom doors swung in her wake. And I stood there, stone-wall still, thinking about how it would be to have her.


	4. Azula Bites Back

**4. Azula Bites Back**

I'd never thought of her that way. As long as I had known Katara, she'd always been either an enemy or a friend; first one, then the other, but never more. Never before had I looked at her and thought, _I want to have you. I want to know you like a boy knows a girl. _

But I _did. _I wanted to make her mine, and what a glorious thought that was—what an escape from the tedium of my life, the sheer, cruel want of purpose that had met me coming home. What a thing to look forward to! And what a _conquest_, for the first time in years! How good would it feel to know that after he'd brought the world down on me, I could steal some measure of her loyalty from the Avatar, right behind his righteous back? I couldn't imagine a sweeter vengeance. Of course, under duress – it'd take something on the order of fire irons, to extract this particular truth – I'd have to admit that no, my life hadn't been wholly ruined, and no, I hadn't really been happy. I'd have to admit that being Firelord, beneath the heel of a Phoenix King, had only begun to make things worse. Maybe it didn't make sense to want revenge.

But even if I knew, despite myself, that it wasn't the Avatar who had ruined me – even if I no longer wanted his head on a pike, his tattooed hide dried and mounted on my wall – the fact remained that I'd been dethroned, and disgraced, and he remained a scapegoat for that resentment. I still saw him as the agent of my destruction, or at least one of them. And if there was a chance to take something from him – a pretty blue-eyed something who just might deceive him for her _friend_ – I was going to take it.

And besides, I _wanted_ her. It was absurd, but it was true. Maybe it was because she was all I had, these days; maybe it was because she was all I'd known, waking up from my long dream, breaking out of my canvas shell. Maybe, like a newborn chick, I'd latched onto the first thing I saw. But in any case once I felt it, that day in the ballroom, I couldn't _stop_ feeling it, ever. The thought of her gnawed constantly at my mind.

The next day, I lay in the center of my bed, drawing. It was a habit I'd picked up in the asylum – the first thing I'd ever done outside my straitjacket – and one that I'd carried with me here, because it was calming. It helped me get my thoughts in order. I might even say it was therapeutic, if I didn't hate that word so much. Since there wasn't much else to do, I ended up drawing most every day, in a sketchbook Katara had given me for exactly that purpose; she'd also procured a set of inks, and oil paints, and pencils and pens and whatever else a princess sprung from the nuthouse might want. On this particular day, I was sketching in charcoal. Specifically, I was sketching people. I enjoyed the challenge of it, capturing the human form, or at least doing the best I could—I was trying, _really_ trying not to harp on perfection, lest I drive myself mad all over again.

At first, it wasn't anyone in particular. Just figures, silhouettes, circles linked by serpentine stripes of charcoal. A few with eyes or hair. But as I sketched, and my mind worked, I found them resembling _her_; she pervaded my thoughts and soon I was drawing her, or the image of her burned into my head. Having seen her every day for so long, I knew her subtleties. The set of her shoulders, the cast of her eyes, that peculiar softness to her face. The loose dark curls of her hair, spilling down her back. The way every plane of her seemed to throw back light, and the way shadow pooled in the folds of her dress. Of course I drew it, as much a part of her as her skin, but first I drew just the contours of her body – the hourglass dip and swell of her torso, plunging into the long, lissome lines of her legs. It was all so raw in charcoal. All of what she was to me – all that she was becoming, frighteningly fast – laid bare on the page.

"Azula?"

Suddenly, Mother's voice cut into my silence, as did the soft _creak_ of a cracked door. I jerked my head up to see her standing there, all bright-eyed and anxious, smiling as though she hadn't just barged in on me. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" I snapped.

"Oh—I'm sorry. I had assumed…" Her voice trailed off and she blinked, like she'd lost track of her thoughts. In their stead, she merely smiled again. "I just thought I'd come see what you were up to. I feel like I never see you, Azula; you're always hiding away up here."

I didn't invite her, but she came and sat on the bed beside me, and I realized she intended to stay. A frown dug its way into my brow. I shut my sketchbook before she could see the page, in no mood to field questions on my subject. "Well," I said none too sweetly, sitting up, "it's not as if I've got something better to do."

"What do you mean?"

"I _mean_," I said, frown narrowing into a glare, "that at the moment, the only thing that's going on is this 'rebuilding the world' business. And in case you haven't guessed, I'm not too wild about that."

"Oh." She was quiet for a moment. "Do you think you'd like it more," she said, "if you had a hand in it?"

It was the kind of question that wasn't really a question – a prod phrased in the gentlest of terms. I found her optimism nauseating. "Right," I said with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Because Zuko would definitely go for that."

"You ought to give your brother more credit. You know if you'd let him help you, he would."

Now _that _was just too much. I could tolerate Mother to a point, but I refused to just sit there and be_ lied_ to. How stupid did she think I was? "Listen, I know you think Zuko hung the sun and all," I sneered, "and maybe that means you think he's _just that forgiving_, but believe me, he's not. _None_ of these people would want my help if their lives depended on it, and honestly, I'm not sure they should. You don't know who I am. You have no _idea_ what I'd do, if I had the chance. So stop acting like you care, and leave me alone."

There was something about Mother that brought out the worst in me—or rather, brought it back. I was always meaner around her. I was always angrier around her. In her presence I became a child, petty and vicious, lashing out without substance or aim – just trying to wound her, trying to make her _react_. Trying to crack her gentle façade. I never said what I meant to say, what I should've said to her. I never said _I saw you every night, in the asylum. I saw a ghost with your face and she spoke to me in your voice; she sat with me and stroked my hair and called me by name when I didn't want to hear it. She told me I was more than what I'd become. _I never said _I saw you before the end, and I cried for the first time in years. _I never said, _do you know how many times you've said _I love you, _in my head? How many times I wouldn't believe it? _

I tried, but it never came out. I just got angry. I just got mean.

"I didn't mean to upset you." After awhile she sighed, and looked away. "It's just that—you've been given a second chance, Azula. I'd hate to see you waste it."

I remembered what the woman with yellow eyes had said, that night so long ago. _You're so lucky, _she'd whispered, in a voice like warm rain; I still didn't feel it. "Is that all?"

I said it as coldly as I could. From the corner of my eye, I saw her press her lips together, face drawn with patience worn thin. "No, actually," she decided to say at last, with a final stab at brightness in her tone. "It's not. I wanted to tell you—you're going to the ball, right?"

"So I'm told."

"Yes, well—I was thinking about that. And I don't know what you're planning to wear, but just in case—I thought it might be fun for you to have a look at the crown jewels. They're kept in a hall near the throne room, and Zuko lent me the key—" here she pulled a skeleton key from her sash, and laid it on the bed next to me "—and you know, some of them belong to the princess. They're still yours to wear, if you want them."

I couldn't help but spare a glance for the key, flashing gold against the red blanket. Almost picked it up, just to feel it heavy in my hand—but no. That would give her too much pleasure. "So?"

"So of course you wouldn't wear them around on a daily basis, but they might be nice for the ball. You might find something you like. I thought you might go and look one day, you and Katara…" Again, her voice faded. She smiled weakly, and shrugged. "At any rate," she said, getting to her feet, "it'd be something to do."

She left without another word, no half-hearted goodbye. I guess it was better that way. When she was gone, I took the key, and resisted the itch to hurl it at the wall—might have burned it, had it been wood, or torn it had it been paper, but instead tucked it into my sash. Felt its weight there like a cherry-pit in my stomach, overlooked by some mutinous – fine, careless, _careless_ – servant girl.

I returned to my sketchbook and the strokes were darker this time, bolder. I could feel the charcoal scrape the page.


	5. Azula and the Jewels

So…I wrote this entire chapter, and then I re-watched City of Walls and Secrets. And goddamn if Katara and Toph weren't wearing earrings. _; Thus, I added in Katara's line about clip-ons. Which actually makes sense, if you're of a mind to rationalize it; I'm ninety-nine percent sure she never wore earrings _before _then, and who would've been piercing her ears in Ba Sing Se? Joo Dee? Toph? Somehow, I think not.

**5. Azula and the Jewels**

It was probably shameless of me, to be so unkind to Mother, only to exploit her good will. Probably, on principle, I should've given back the key. I probably should've done a lot of things, actually, that I didn't do; that just happened to be one of them.

And so Katara and I found ourselves in the treasury, three days before the ball. I hadn't seen much of her, since the dance lesson – I thought because she knew _something_ had happened, though I didn't think she knew what – but that day she agreed to come with me, to look at the jewels. I'd figured it would be fun for her, myself. After all, she'd grown up a peasant; it wasn't as if she'd ever seen such things.

"Look at this!" She stared with saucer-eyes down at the vitrine, jabbing a finger at the glass. "I mean, seriously—look at this! Even _one_ of these—you could pawn it and feed a whole village for a month!"

She_ would _say that. I rolled my eyes. "Is that a _problem_?"

"No, it's just—well, I know they're the crown jewels, you can't really sell them. It's just kind of incredible, you know? That all of this even _exists_, here in one place." She shook her head and peered down at the jewels again, shielding her eyes against the glare of candelabra on glass. The case we stood over was mine – well, not _mine_, the one that belonged to the princess – but it was far from the only one; others just like it lined the walls. Beneath a collage of tapestries, rows of vitrines stood on golden legs, boasting tiaras, medallions, rings and bangles that must have been heavy as lead. All encrusted in gems. Not like what we wore now, in an era with a sleeker aesthetic, but most of the crown jewels were centuries old. It'd been ages since anyone had dusted these cases, let alone opened them and worn the jewels. "You can't tell me you're not impressed."

"Why should I be?" I sniffed, vaguely imperious, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. Maybe I'd never worn _this_ breed of jewelry, but I was no stranger to opulence. "These are _mine_."

"Sure they are. Until Zuko and Mai have a daughter."

I nearly choked on a snort. "Don't make me vomit."

Rolling her eyes, she reached down to unlatch the glass cover, minding the rusted hinges and clasps. Exposed, its contents shone all the brighter. Most of the princess's jewels were delicate, feminine – gem-studded bracelets, and pendants, and strings of saltwater pearls. An exceedingly ornate, ancient tiara. Several pairs of chandelier earrings. "They're beautiful," Katara said reverently. Sidelong, she flicked her eyes towards me. "But I can't imagine anyone wearing them. I mean, today."

"I know." I picked up a heavy ruby necklace, sparkling like seawater in the light. "Mother said to pick something for the ball, but—come on. This thing would be worse than fetters."

"How about those?" She pointed to a pair of earrings less garish than the rest. They looked like tassels, almost. Each with hundreds of impossibly fine golden threads, dangling from a little hook. Beside them lay another set, matching in all but color; instead of gold, the second pair were strung diamonds, cut as small as specks of dust. "Those wouldn't be so bad."

"Mm." I took a golden earring, and it was light in my hand. These would be bearable. Maybe even pretty. But I found my eyes drawn to the diamonds, and not for me; my skin was too pale. When I exchanged the golden tassel for a diamond one, I held it up against Katara's neck, watching it glitter. "What do you think?"

"What, for me?" For the second time since I'd known her, she flushed, blinking down at the earring as if it were a snake about to bite her. "I couldn't. It wouldn't be right."

"Who says what's right? These earrings are mine, at least for now. If I say you can wear them, you can." I nodded to the golden pair, a cajoling half-smile playing at my lips. The thought of her in those earrings was immensely appealing, for reasons I couldn't have explained if she'd asked me. "We could match."

She swallowed and pressed her lips together. Almost smiled herself, I could tell. "I don't even have pierced ears. I've only worn clip-ons before."

"So what? Neither do I. We can do it ourselves." She cocked an eyebrow. "What are you, chicken? I'll do yours, you'll do mine. I'll even go first. It'll be _fun_."

For once, I was the one to convince _her_ of something – the one to take _her _by the hand, and pull her off to some grinning elsewhere. I took her to my room, to my vanity, along the way sending a servant girl for supplies. A cork, a tin of sewing needles, a bowl of ice and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. Two pairs of golden studs with backs. When she brought them, I set the tray on the vanity and sat down, true to my word; I was more than willing to go first. I'd been the asylum's resident pincushion, with all of those shots. I couldn't afford to be afraid of needles.

Katara hovered behind me, still unsure. "I've never done this before."

"Neither have I, but I've seen it done. Girls at the academy used to do it all the time." I nodded to the ceramic bowl on the tray. A towel was stuffed inside and filled with chunks of ice, cut from the store in the icehouse beneath the palace. "You start with the ice. To make it numb."

There came a brief nip of cold on my right earlobe. "What now?"

"Now you pick a needle and clean it. I'll use fire when it's my turn. You use the alcohol." Behind me, I heard the soft tinkle of needles in the tin, a _pop_ as she uncapped the bottle. I smelled alcohol in the air. When it was done she paused, waiting for the next step. "Take the cork and press it on the other side, so you'll have something to push into. Just hold it there, find a good spot, and—you know. Go for it."

I felt her hesitate. "I don't know."

"Listen, if you can chain me to a grate, you can pierce my ear. Don't be a baby. I'll be fine."

Apparently, that did the trick, because a second later I felt the needle's sting. It hurt, but only for a moment, and I'd known my share of sharper pain; when she pulled out the needle and pushed in the stud, I rather enjoyed its weight. She did my left ear just as quickly, even more smoothly. Looking in the mirror, I thought she'd even managed to get them level. "You know," she mused, inspecting the reddened lobes of my ears, "I could probably heal these a little. Not too much, of course, but enough that we could actually wear those earrings for the ball." With a tissue, she dabbed at the right stud, wiping away a halo of blood. "It'd probably be too tender otherwise."

"Lovely idea. Now sit."

She did, albeit nervously. With a ribbon I tied back her hair, and pulled it up onto her head; with an enamel barrette I kept it fastened there, exposing her ears, the white-tea plane of her neck. When I pressed the ice against her earlobe, right first as she'd done with me, I saw the down prickle at its nape. I chose a needle from the tin, long and exquisitely sharp. Holding it up I watched it glisten, catching the light, throwing it back—then, I slid its tip between my thumb and index finger, and heated it until I saw blue flame lick at their pads. I waited a minute for it to cool.

"Don't be so tense," I said airily as I picked up the cork, seeing her shoulders stiffen. "Seriously. It's really not that bad."

Katara's reflection smiled weakly, but her back stayed braced. Shaking my head, I held the cork against the front of her earlobe, and – figuring it was best to be decisive, get it over with for her sake – lanced it right through the middle. A hiss escaped her grit teeth. The needle stuck in the cork. Blood welled up around it, but before it could run I replaced the needle with a golden stud, pushed through before the pain from the first prick could fade. I screwed on the backing and wrapped the needle in a tissue, its gleam now dulled to rusty red.

"You were right," she said a little breathlessly. In the mirror, I saw the pain on her face melt into relief, that apprehensive twitch easing its grip. "I guess it wasn't that bad."

"Told you." I reached for another wedge of ice. "Let's go two for two."

But before I could start on her left ear, I paused. Like a snared fish, something had caught me, but it wasn't a dangling hook—it was the blood beading around the piercing, running down the back of her neck. A single scarlet streak. It shone, almost sparkled, like the rubies in the heavy necklace; it called my eyes and wouldn't let them look away. There was something beautiful about it, that shade of red against her brown-sugar skin. The red of roses. The red of apples. It was the prettiest red I'd ever seen, her blood, and without even thinking my finger unfurled to catch it. I slid its tip up her neck to corral the droplet, expecting her to flinch, expecting her to pull away…but even as my nail brushed her skin, she barely moved. Only shivered, didn't speak. As if she hadn't felt it – or maybe didn't want to – she sat silent and still. I rubbed the coppery stain between my fingers, biting back the sudden urge to lick them clean.

"Azula?" Within moments the spell was broken, her voice waking me from my trance. She blinked up at me in the mirror. "Are you going to do the other one?"

Beneath my ribs, the hunger to have her redoubled, so strong it almost took my breath away. "Of course I am," I said anyway, wiping the blood from my hand. "Sit still."


	6. Azula Gets Her Girl

Kind of a disappointing reader response, as of late. =\ Maybe this chapter will get things going again.

Other notes: I really enjoy the notion of Azula regaling terrified ballgoers with stories of the asylum, and if I weren't trying to keep these chapters under 2,000 words – or if I had a whole chapter to focus on it, instead of tossing it in with everything else – I would expand it much more. But I am, and I don't, thus I can't. Oh, missed opportunities.

Also, Katara's wavy hair is nice and all, but I do think it looks pretty bangin' straight. Case in point: her hair in the first B-story segment of _The Beach_. I'd link you to a screenshot, but…you know. =\

**6. Azula Gets Her Girl**

I met her on the stairs, before the ball began. Waited there a long time. I'd known she would be awhile, because she was straightening her hair, and she'd told me to go without her, but—well, we both knew it wouldn't happen. I wasn't going to go down there alone. I certainly wasn't going with anyone else. So I stood on the stairs and waited, twisting one tassel earring between my fingers, until she emerged from her room.

When she did, I said nothing, because there was nothing I _could_ say. She might as well have struck me in the face. I found myself dazed at the sight of her, dumb as a doll; numbly, I watched as she crossed the carpet, sheathed in a sleeveless cheongsam. It was pearl-white, patterned in silver jasmine. Above her shoulders hung the diamond earrings, still glittering like strung stars, swaying gently, flashing with each step. Almost blinding against the dark veil of her hair. Combed straight, it fell past her hips in a liquid sheet, shone like metal melted and poured down her back.

"Hey." Her voice was warm as a handful of embers, a smile tweaking the corners of unglossed lips. She never wore makeup, not even that night. "Well, what do you know? You clean up pretty nice, Azula."

Maybe I did, but I wasn't thinking about that. I wondered briefly how _she _could. I wore a cheongsam like hers, red instead of white, and a scarlet peony in my hair, and I'd painted my lips red for the occasion, but—those were just trappings, nothing more. I saw in her something I'd never seen in my mirror, something more than just _pretty_, something—_devastating, _almost. That was the only word that came to mind. She could have crushed me with a glance.

"Hello?" She waved a hand before my eyes, one eyebrow cocked. I didn't even realize I hadn't answered. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah. Sure, I guess so."

I made a valiant effort to sound bored. It must not have been valiant enough, though – I swear, every second I spent with her made it harder and harder to lie – because she noticed something, even if it wasn't the thing I felt most strongly. She reached out and touched my shoulder, and spoke in a tone soft with sympathy. "Listen, it's going to be okay. You can handle these people, right?"

Right. Better to let her think that's what was quickening my heart. "Of course I can."

This ballroom – the main one – was different than where we'd practiced. Not in décor, which was mostly the same except grander, but in repair. Obviously, it had been renovated for the ball, and I might've been impressed were I less distracted; as it was, I saw the room through a haze of daydreams. I saw that it was festooned in red and gold lanterns, dripping from every surface like paper jewels. I saw that the candelabra had been polished, and the marble floor waxed. I saw that there were long, linen-draped tables of food. But most of all, what I saw was her hair swinging like a pendulum as she moved, so hypnotic I nearly tripped over my own feet.

"Azula!" When Katara disappeared, off to welcome the first wave of guests, I heard my name in Ty Lee's chipper trill. It seemed this was her routine, now. Whenever she saw me, she'd squeal my name in a pitch only dogs could hear, and hug me like she hadn't seen me in years—which admittedly she hadn't, the first time. But it was getting just slightly old. "We're so glad you came!" she enthused when she pulled away, indicating Mai a few steps behind. "And look at you! You look _beautiful_! What kind of flower is that, a peony? I love it! Oh, Azula, I'm just _so_ glad you came!"

She hugged me again and then bounced back, hands clasped. Mai, with much less passion, nodded agreement. "You really do look nice. Although I have to ask—when did _you_ start wearing _flowers _in your hair?"

"Around the same time I started coming to balls."

"Well, you should do both more often!" Ty Lee chirped. Suddenly, her gaze swerved towards the doorway, and the sun on her face burst out nova-bright. "Oh! Oh, look, look, Hana just got here—I haven't seen her in _ages_! I'm going to go say hi!"

She sprang away towards the crowd. I sighed – just being around her made me tired, even more so than before – and Mai raised an eyebrow. "She's right," she said. "It's a good thing you're here." Her tone dipped into dryness, if it had ever risen out. "There are a lot of people who are just _dying_ to see you."

"And they know?"

"Well, no one was supposed to." She rolled her eyes. "So yeah. Everyone knows."

That, at least, proved a diversion. As the ball began, guests flowed in through those doors like fish through the mouth of a stream, and a disturbing number of them were people I knew. Or had known, I guess. The older ones knew well enough to keep their distance, and the boys just gawked at me from across the room, but the girls—well, five seconds into our first encounter, the girls were working my last nerve. Horrible gossipy girls, all of them, claiming to know me from school. Some I recognized, some I didn't, but for their purposes it didn't matter. They didn't care a whit about me. They just crowded around stirring up insipid chatter, edging unsubtly around the news they _really_ wanted to hear: how it felt to be so scandalously disgraced as I'd been, and how I could bear to live anymore. If I was really as crazy as they'd heard.

And I tried to be nice about it. Maybe not _hard_, but I tried. So I figured I'd very much earned it, when I decided to throw in the towel, and save us all the small talk; eventually, I took to being very straightforward with them. When a new flock approached, I would ask, in the sweetest sing-song I could muster, _and what would _you_ like to know? Are you going to ask if the rumors are true? Are you going to ask if I really did lose my mind? Are you wondering what it's like in an institution—purely for _academic_ reasons, of course? Because they are, and I did, and it's not _nearly_ as glamorous as you might think. But that's all behind me now. I'm totally normal, honest. The doctors said there's a only _very _slim chance I'll relapse, and spontaneously murder everyone here. Oh, what was it—fifty percent?_

But as with all fun, mine had to end sometime. After a few hours of that game, Katara emerged from the herd of dancers, to the table where I held wallflower's court. "I hear you've been scaring our guests."

She didn't sit and I didn't stand up, so we faced each other on a slant – her eyeing me knowingly, and me watching her earrings catch the light. "Who, me?" I said innocently. "Never."

"Ahh. So you _haven't_ been telling everyone you're a raving lunatic, and you might just snap and take their heads off any second now?"

"People are curious, Katara. I'm just telling them what they want to hear."

"I see. Well, it's great that you're such an open book and all, but on Zuko's behalf I'm going to have to ask you to rein it in a little. Call him old-fashioned, but he'd rather you weren't leaving the guests at his ball too nervous to dance." She turned to look out at the crowd. The shift of her head cast shadow over the diamonds, let the light skim the soft line of her jaw—in the space of seconds, I saw it pass over her cheekbone, glimmer at the nape of her neck. Then she looked at me, and I caught my breath. "Which reminds me. Aren't you going to dance?"

"No one's asked me. I'm a raving lunatic, remember?"

She held out her hand. "Then come dance with me."

For a moment, I blinked at her open palm. Felt a disquieting need not to take it, but just _touch_ it – to run my fingers over hers. "Maybe later."

Of course, I never did. I just sat there at the table, deprived of my fun; there was nothing to do but sip my drink, and watch the dancers. I wasn't hungry. I'd lost the mood to talk. My eyes wandered through the mass, as they whirled to the strains of the band, and I watched for the flash of her white cheongsam. I saw her slide through the waltzes one by one, sometimes with her friends but usually with _him_—that twerpy little monk she called her _boyfriend_. I refused to believe he had a name. And when the time for slow dancing came – when the evening began winding down, and bows drew gently over strings – he pulled her close. They circled and swayed with the other couples, glommed onto each other like mating dragonflies. Him with his hands on her hips. Her looking into his eyes. It made me sick.

I thought maybe that would be enough to break it, this habit I had of wanting her so much I couldn't breathe. But then again, I thought a lot of things.

I left when the ball ended, with the rest of the guests heading home. She stayed after to help clean up. Which she _would_ do, even though we had maids for it, because that's the kind of person she is—but in any case it was a long time, before she came back up the stairs. Most everyone else was in bed. A servant had come through snuffing the sconces, at some point, and so I stood in the corridor bathed in shadows; I couldn't have said why had I been asked. All I knew was that I'd had enough.

Maybe she knew it, too, because she didn't ask. When the darkness ebbed and she surfaced, almost glowing in the moonlight, she looked at me without surprise. And I didn't hesitate, because that's the kind of person _I_ am; I took her face in my hands and kissed her, and it was the best I'd felt in years.


	7. Azula Makes Her Case

You know, I could probably write a freaking dissertation on the color blue in the context of Azutara. ._. Avatar would be a kickass major.

**7. Azula Makes Her Case**

The next morning, I got up early. _Got _up, not _woke _up, because _woke_ up would mean I actually slept. I slid out of bed as the sun slid over the hills, the first rays of dawn peering through my curtains; in the dim light, I washed my face at my vanity, ran a comb through my hair. Then I slipped out into the hall, and came to the doors of her room, and cracked one open as quietly as I could.

Her mattress creaked under my weight, but that didn't wake her. My breath in her ear did. When she turned, I kissed her, until she took me by the shoulder and pulled away. "This is wrong."

"So?"

She blinked at me, eyes still glazed with sleep. I kissed her again, and once more, and then I pushed her over onto her back; I straddled her hips and leaned over her, grinning. Couldn't keep the smile off my face. "No," she tried again between kisses, breathless. "I mean it. This is really—_really_ wrong."

"I still don't see your point."

She kissed me back. She could protest all she liked, but _she kissed me back_, beautiful dizzying truth that it was. Like a reflex, her mouth answered mine. I could feel her heart beat faster, her breath thicken in her throat—when I touched her, I felt gooseflesh bloom in my wake. I raised my head and wet my lips and came back to her with hunger renewed, for the taste of tidepools and wildflowers; I nipped at her lip, opened her mouth, slid inside. I'd never kissed much before, but it came easy with her, like carving out a home. Like stealing the sweetness from her tongue.

There was an urgency to it, a searing savage need. A desperate drive to get as much of her, as near to her as I could. I kissed her and kissed her and soon we were entwined, a knot of limbs and dressing gowns—and it was good that way, it was good. I felt everything. When her back arched, when her breath hitched, when flutters spread through her chest pressed against mine. When she could have but didn't let go. And I felt rather than heard her sigh when the swell passed, when that something inside me finally calmed and I drew back. Placing a last, light, deliberate kiss at the edge of her mouth, I pulled in a breath and let my head fall against her, into the cinnamon crook of her neck.

"Azula." She breathed my name with a thousand meanings, a thousand thoughts in conflict. It was gentle, and also bitter, and also sad. Almost impossibly fond. I loved the sound of my name most when she said it, after I'd kissed her awhile. "I have a _boyfriend_."

"And?"

"And I love him. He loves me. I can't just—_betray_ him like this."

"You already have." She stiffened a little and I smiled, taking one of her hands in mine. Lifting it to my mouth, I spread her fingers and kissed between the first two, tasting milk soap on her skin. "Listen," I murmured, "this is harmless. We're just having fun. There's nothing wrong with that."

"I have a feeling Aang would see it differently."

I moved to the junction of her ring and middle finger, planting a kiss there next. "He doesn't have to know."

"I'm not a liar, Azula."

"You mean you weren't before." I kissed – where else? – the last notch between her fingers, completing the chain. "Nothing has to change. You can still love him, and he can still love you, and you can grow up and get married and have a whole swarm of adorable baby cloudbenders, or whatever you get mixing water and air. The only difference is, for once in your life, you get to stop thinking about what's _right, _and do something just because it feels good." A grin edged my lips against her palm. "Haven't you ever wanted to be the bad girl? Just once?"

I lifted my head, met her eyes. Blue as ever. Blue as the ocean, blue as the sky; blue as the fire smoldering under my skin. "This is wrong," she said once more, at last. Her voice a strengthless whisper.

"Yeah." I kissed her again, on the lips this time. "But in case you've forgotten, I'm not exactly the princess of doing what's right."

She let out a sigh. But after that she was quiet, and for long time I just lay on top of her, feeling her breathe; I laced my fingers through hers, laid my head in her hair strewn over the pillow. Soaked up the scent of her skin. Together, in a sliver of the dawn, we were exquisitely still.

I couldn't remember when I'd last been so content. The last time everything had felt so _right._ Even when she pushed me off, and sat up – when the morning began in earnest, much as I wished it never would – the kernel of warmth inside me didn't fade. Beside me, Katara pushed her arms up and stretched, fisted one hand to rub her eyes. She slid out of bed and ambled towards the vanity, the restless night still clinging to her like a cloak, her hands sifting languidly through the drawers. In her basin, full of rosewater and mint, she wet a soft cloth; I watched as she wrung it out and scrubbed the sleep from her face. As she swapped the cloth for a comb, picked the loose strands from its teeth, and began to pull it through her hair.

She didn't resist, when I plucked the comb from her hand. Her face in the mirror said she'd expected it. And her hair was sleek, still, falling through the comb's teeth like water through open hands; its waves would come back in a few days, and they'd be pretty in their own way, but for now the straightened strands mesmerized me. Never caught on the comb, made me jerk or tug like she had that day in the washroom. Just spilled through its teeth in long, liquid columns, shining in what faint light breached the curtains.

I couldn't help it. For awhile I combed her hair, but we were too close, it was too _easy_—I set down the comb and leaned in and kissed her neck, that silky snip of skin I glimpsed with each stroke of the comb. I pressed myself up against her, slid my arms around her, felt her shiver and sigh. Again I tasted milk soap, and lilac lotion; again I felt the thrill wash through her, skin tingling on my tongue. "Quit it," she said in a mumble when I nipped her, her reflection reddening by degrees. I didn't exactly obey. "Azula—I mean it! You're going to leave a bruise."

"Mm." I smiled into her skin. If I could have, I'd have swallowed her up like brown sugar candy. If I could have, I'd never have let her leave my arms. "So everyone will know you're mine."


	8. Azula's New Leaf

So I was kind of hoping no one would wonder why the rest of the Gaang wasn't at breakfast, seeing as they were at the ball. I was kind of hoping no one would wonder where else they would stay, if not at the palace, or why they wouldn't be eating if they were there. I was kind of hoping that because I didn't really want to juggle dialogue between eight thousand people, seeing as writing for five was hard enough. And then I was dumb enough to go and _tell _everyone I was hoping they wouldn't notice, so now you'll all be guaranteed to. _; Sorry.

Also, this chapter is the first of what will probably be a couple of references to various characters having "sleepovers", which can mean whatever you want it to mean. As I already said in my note for the first chapter, there's not going to be any sex, nor any explicit referencing of sex; "sleepover" is as dirty as it's going to get. And you can assume that's code for "boning", or you can assume it involves exactly what it claims to: sleeping. Or anything in between. Go to town.

**8. Azula's New Leaf**

I didn't usually go to breakfast, like Katara did. Didn't want to start my days with Zuko and Mother, or anyone else who might have stayed over or dropped by. Most days I had a servant bring me my plate, and I ate in my suite – but this wasn't most days.

When the knock came at Katara's door – when we heard the maid trill _breakfast! _– I detached myself from her and, without much thinking about it, headed downstairs at her side. It didn't seem an issue anymore. I was hungry, she was going, and the thought of facing the world didn't bother me at all. Whoever was down there, whatever they said, it wouldn't so much as nick my armor; after all, I already had my prize. Nothing could rattle me now.

The armor, of course, was metaphorical. While I was growing up, we always dressed for breakfast, as we did for everything else; while I was growing up everything was formal, but evidently Zuko was ringing in a new age of laziness, because she told me it was fine to go in dressing gowns. And she wasn't kidding. In the dining room, Mother sat at one end of the table, Zuko and Mai – Mai having slept over that night, which wasn't exactly a new habit, and at which I would've sneered had I been in lesser spirits – at the other. All three of them were in robes, hair undone. Had I been in lesser spirits, I would've been appalled.

But I was too pleased with myself to be put out by them, and besides that I wasn't dressed, either. I wasn't even wearing makeup. Ordinarily I'd never let myself be seen without it – hadn't since the asylum, and that wasn't so much _letting_ myself be seen as being unable to apply lipstick in a straitjacket – but that morning I didn't mind. It didn't matter how they saw me. And my mouth had better places to be than the business end of a lipstick tube.

"Good morning," I addressed the group, flashing a venomless smile, pulling out a chair beside Katara halfway down the table. I think it was the first time I'd ever said _good morning_ to anyone, without meaning it as a barb. "What's for breakfast?"

At first, no one said anything. Everyone just kind of blinked at me, stunned silent, save for Katara; her mouth twitched in a near-smile, and she shook her head, and of course _she_ in her dressing gown with its collar tugged up understood my mood, but it wasn't as if she could _say_ something. She just kept her eyes on the table, waiting for someone else to gather their wits. "Good morning, Azula," Mother answered at last, pleasant but wary, head cocked to one side. Speaking slowly, as she might her first words of a new language. "Are you…going to eat with us today?"

"It would seem that way, wouldn't it?" A maid set down a plate and chopsticks in front of me, along with an empty teacup and saucer. Inspecting the plate, I saw rice and vegetables, and a rolled omelet with something that looked like spinach. "Would somebody please pass the tea?"

I'm sure it was also the first time I'd said _please_, sincerely. Zuko, who happened to be nearest the teapot, looked as if he'd just swallowed something sour. "You're in an awfully good mood," he said, sparing no measure of suspicion. He did so gingerly, almost bitterly – as if the gesture pained him – but he slid the pot down the table, eyeing me the whole time. "Is something wrong?"

"Don't be silly, Zuzu. Does something have to be _wrong_ for me to be happy?" I gave a mock sniff of offense, pouring myself a cup of tea. "I'm hurt."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "Well, you have to admit it's a little weird."

"So? Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf." Beside me, Katara stifled a snort. I donned the sweetest smile I could bear. "Or maybe," I said very innocently, not so much as looking at her, "I just had a _really_ good night."

"Did you?" Mother said brightly, blissfully unaware of Katara's stiffened shoulders. "I'm so glad. I just _knew_ you'd enjoy the ball, Azula, if only you'd agree to go."

Zuko frowned. "Of course she enjoyed it. She spent all night terrifying our guests."

"Come now, I didn't do that. People wanted to know where I'd been all this time. I just told them the truth." I took my chopsticks and sliced a neat cube from my omelet, as primly as I possibly could. "What would you have had me say? I ran off and joined the circus? Spent a few years at the beach?"

"No, but you didn't have to—"

"Zuko." Mother cut in gently, cast him an imploring glance. Watching his glare darken – knowing he'd never say _no _to her – I smiled, and popped another bite of omelet into my mouth. "Does it really matter? Your sister's in good spirits. Let's not waste them." I bit back the urge to smirk. Instead, I took a slow sip of tea, scanning the table from end to end over the lip of the cup; I saw the furrow in Zuko's brow cut deeper, teeth no doubt grit behind his scowl. I saw Katara pointedly avoid my gaze. And from the corner of my eye, I saw Mother and Mai exchange a glance, before Mother put on a smile and tried again. "Did you dance at all, Azula?"

"Oh, no," I said as I set down the teacup. "I'm afraid I'm not very good at it."

"That's too bad. Weren't you bored?"

"No, no. As Zuzu so kindly pointed out, I had lots of company." I picked out and ate a bit of rice from my bowl. "And besides, I got to watch everyone else dance. Katara and Aang gave quite the show."

The word no longer smacked of vinegar, perfectly sapless on my tongue. As far as I was concerned, the little twit could have his name, so long as I had Katara. Her eyes slid sharply in my direction, but Mother didn't notice; she went on smiling warmly, gushing, "Didn't they, though? And it all seemed so spontaneous!"

"Well, that's just because they have such _natural_ chemistry." A grin spread over my lips, bright and blithe to Mother's eyes. I did my best to suppress its knowing edge. "One look and you know they're in _love_."

I'm sure the look on Mai's face must have been interesting. I'd have liked to see Zuko choke on that sour thing. But the second those words left my mouth, Katara's sharp eyes slit to daggers, and she didn't give me the chance to turn around. "Would you excuse us a minute, please?" she said as she pushed back her chair, its legs squealing against the floor. "Azula and I need to talk."

She took me by the wrist and practically dragged me outside, caught in her shackle-grip, tripping over my gown keeping up. When we were out of earshot of the dining room, she pinned me to the wall with a hand like an ice pick, a scowl gouging its way into her brow. "Look," she snapped, far from gently, "I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but it needs to stop, and it needs to stop _now._"

I had to stifle the itch to giggle, for more reasons than one. I was fairly sure I'd never _giggled_ in my life. "What? You mean I can't pay you and your _man_ a little compliment?"

"I _mean_ that if you want this—this _thing _to happen, you'd better not go around paying _anyone_ compliments, because anybody who knows you is going to know something's up. Do you think they're stupid, Azula? Do you think they won't catch on? That you can just prance around _oozing_ sugar and sunshine, and no one'll suspect a thing—that you can sit around swooning about how Aang and I are in _love_, and _no one's_ going to guess what you really mean?" She flayed me with a glare, so fierce it was almost wounded. "I—I already feel awful, okay? I don't need you making it worse. And I don't need you outing us just for kicks, because—I don't know, because you've got nothing better to do. Maybe _you_ don't think you've got anything to lose, but _I_ do, and this—I didn't think I'd have to _tell_ you this, but it _has_ to be a secret, Azula. You have to take it seriously. Otherwise—otherwise, no deal."

She faltered on the last bit. Wound down flushed and out of sorts. For the first time that day – the first time in a long time – I felt a touch of what could've been remorse, or empathy; whatever it was, it softened me. Sapped the smug from my smile. I didn't always know what I wanted, but I knew it wasn't that look on her face. "Okay, okay," I assured her, suddenly, startlingly sincere. "Message received. No more sugar."

"No more 'good moods'?" she pressed. "No more 'being nice'? I mean, not that I don't _want_ you to be happy, but—no more giving them reason to ask you why?"

"I'll be a regular stormcloud." Her grip on me finally eased. She sighed, and smoothed back her hair, and straightened her gown and all the time I dwelled on what she'd said, _outing us._ I liked the thought of she and I as _us_, new though it was to me. There was a certain rightness to the word. "Hold on," I said when she glanced back down the hall, grabbing her the sleeve. "Come here."

She blinked back at me, still flustered. Before she got more so – before she turned pink and jerked back like I'd bit her, hissing _someone's going to see! _– I caught her by the chin and kissed her, there in the corridor. _That little twit can have his name._


	9. Azula Floats

So I thought I should at least address the question of sexuality, because Azula's frustrations here are basically my own. Not that there's anything _wrong_ with being a lesbian, or that I'd be so opposed to writing a character as one; it's just that Azula gets pegged as one an awful lot, and I feel like it's because, as she says, she's tougher and meaner than the boys. I could write a whole women's-studies thesis on the matter, but to make a long story short, people like to make strong female characters less threatening to men by labeling them lesbians, and it's irritating to me. I wanted to make it clear that, in the context of this story, Azula's feelings for Katara happen because she's attracted to her as a _person _– not because she's a badass and therefore must be gay.

Also! You wouldn't think you'd have to do research for a fanfic, but lo and behold, I did…sort of. That is, I asked around on the AvatarSpirit forums, and it seems canon would have it that Jet _was_ Katara's first kiss; at least, it would if you consider the "Avatar Extras" canon. It made for better conversation in this chapter, so I decided that I do.

**9. Azula Floats**

One day, in one of the palace gardens – the most secluded of the lot, walled on all sides and veiled by willow trees, tucked beneath the castle's eaves – Katara strung up a hammock between two trees. She climbed in on one side, I on the other, and together we whiled away the afternoon. I nestled against her and she rubbed my back, through the tunic I still wore on hot days; now and then we spoke, trading sun-drunk murmurs, but they never came to much. Mostly because I didn't want to talk, so much as I wanted to steep in her scent. Mostly because when a thought wore on too long, I kissed it into dust.

So it was a long time, before we had any real dialogue. We'd lain there for hours, floating, swaying, watching the sun peer through the willow reeds. Batting away butterflies. I'd only just closed another kiss, my hands twined into her hair – my eyes resting on hers, belladonna blue – when suddenly she blinked, and broke the silence. "Azula," she asked, as if she'd just had this thought, "are you…?"

"_No_." I sighed. "Why does everyone always ask me that?"

She pushed herself up on the hammock, one eyebrow raised, eyeing me with disbelief. "Well, I don't know about _everyone_," she said, "but you just kissed me, and in case you weren't sure, I'm a girl. Is it really such a stupid question?"

"Yeah, it is. In case you weren't sure, you kissed me back. And you have a _boyfriend_." She flushed and pressed her lips together, unable to retort. Mouth cocked in a smirk, I sat up beside her. "Listen, I don't like you because you're a _girl._ I wouldn't like you any less if you weren't. And maybe _you_ never got it, because you're all sweetness and light, but I'm sick of people just _assuming_ I'm a lesbian because I'm tougher and meaner than the boys." I tossed my hair over one shoulder. "I mean, come on. I've kissed guys and everything."

She grinned. "Really? Who?"

"No one _you'd_ know." My eyes rolled slowly up a willow's trunk, trying to remember myself. I _knew_ I had – you don't forget your first kiss – but it had been so long ago. So much had happened since then. "Okay, so maybe it was just _one_ guy," I conceded, "at the beach one year. When I was fourteen. I don't remember his name, or—what he looked like, really, but I remember I kissed him. Or he kissed me. And then I said something stupid, and things went…downhill."

"Well, that's convincing."

I sneered and socked her in the shoulder, no real force behind the blow. "Fine. How about you? I don't suppose you've ever kissed anyone, outside of me and the Almighty Arrowhead?"

"You suppose wrong. Aang wasn't my first kiss."

"Is that so?"

"It is." Her eyes strayed to the hammock, the thick weave of the canvas as it rocked. Absently, she began to pick at a loose thread. "It was…this guy we met a long time ago, early on. Pretty soon after we met Aang. I'd lived in the South Pole my whole life, and—I'd hardly ever _seen_ a guy, save for my brother—so I sort of had a crush on him, I guess. He kissed me. It was—nice." A short, sharp breath left her nose. "But he was a jerk."

"Mm." I tipped my head to one side. "Did this jerk have a name?"

"Jet." Before I could ask myself where I'd heard it, she added, "I've talked about him before. He was the reason I tried healing you; it'd already worked on him."

"He was crazy?"

"Brainwashed." She let the thread alone and lay back again, arms folded behind her head. Looked up at the reeds as though she saw something there, other than long, thin leaves and slivers of sky. "He's gone now."

I eased myself back down beside her, this time laid my head on her chest. Her dress that day was blue batik, filmy and soft; through it, I could feel the warmth of her skin. The gentle rise and fall of each breath. The hum of her heartbeat, like a little bird caged by her ribs. "You know, Azula," she said after awhile, when her hand had returned to rub my back, "this doesn't mean we don't still have work to do. This thing, with you and me—it doesn't mean I'm not still responsible for you. It doesn't mean I'm not going to push you anymore. Zuko still wants you making progress, if you're going to live in his palace."

_Zuko. _My nose wrinkled of its own accord. Somehow, he always managed to kill the mood, even when he wasn't around. "What do you mean, progress?" I said vaguely, wishing we could avoid the subject altogether. It was too nice a day for this. "I'm fine. I've had all my reunions, I've been nice, I've been good—I went to that ball and I behaved myself, for the most part. I've been a perfect little defanged snake." Her chest fluttered with something like laughter. "You don't need to shrink my head anymore."

She made a soft sound, a knowing _mm_ like the first strains of a lullaby. Like she used to when I'd tell her things during our sessions. A breeze passed through the willows, rocked the hammock, stirred our hair; I closed my eyes, and her hand slid up the back of my shirt. Began again to stroke the ridge of my spine, the valley between my shoulder blades. "Do you still have bad dreams?"

"No. No dreams."

Another _mm _noise, deep in her throat. "And have you told your mother yet? About the dreams you used to have about her?"

The word _dreams _struck me the wrong way. I stiffened, but only slightly; her touch felt too good to pull away. "They weren't _dreams._"

"They weren't real."

"I _know_ that, but the woman with yellow eyes wasn't a dream. She was a ghost." A swallowtail butterfly darted past, wings flashing like a lighthouse beam. I watched them split and merge. Each time I caught only a glimpse of gold, veined in black—the half-second blink of a blue eye, before it closed with the flicker of a wing. "And no," I said quietly. "I haven't told Mother." The swallowtail sailed away, through the curtain of willow reeds. "I can't."

Beneath my tunic, her hand traced long, lazy lines, followed an invisible path. She was silent for awhile, stroking me, gazing up at nothing; for a moment, I almost believed she'd let it go. "Is that how you really feel, Azula?" she said at last, softer than before. "Like a—defanged snake?" Somwhere outside the veil, a cricket chirped. I felt the hammock shift, her head rise, her eyes fall on me. "Is that all this is to you?"

I let out my breath. "I was just kidding."

"Were you? Because—if you're unhappy—"

"I'm _fine_, Katara. Relax." I sat up again, looked down at her. I didn't want to do this, any of this, not now—maybe not ever, if I could help it. So what if I didn't know if I meant it, when I said _I'm_ _fine_? So what if I didn't know if I was _happy_? It didn't matter, and I didn't care; I knew this wasn't going to make me any happier. "I'm fine." Cupping her chin in my hand, I tipped her head back and kissed her, as my hair fell around us like the night. "This is all I need."

I didn't want to question it. Didn't want to think, didn't want to talk, didn't want to do anything but taste the rain on her tongue; sitting astride her, sliding my arms around her shoulders, I kissed her until I forgot who I was. Until there was nothing but her mouth, her hands, her scent like the sea and the sky. Nothing but the sweet swell of her sigh. Just she and I and the warmth, the still air, the sunlight pushing through the trees—the singing crickets and the swallowtails, the hammock swaying under our weight. No ghosts, no bad dreams, no Mother wanting and Zuko wanting and everybody wanting things I couldn't give. Just me needing all of her, and getting it.


	10. Azula Spars

Okay, so about Katara's match-winning move – I _cannot_ be the only one who absolutely _hates_ that. I don't know why, but I do, and I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one.

**10. Azula Spars**

There was something hypnotic about waterbending, at least when she did it. I'd never have told her so. It was a peasant practice, one of the lesser arts, and it was below me even to watch it – but somehow, I couldn't look away.

I sat on the grass in the garden, near the pond. Above me, she swept through the steps of her form. It was a nice day, an unusually cool day, and she'd decided it was a good day for drills – nothing complex, nor difficult, but mesmerizing all the same. Thick with an opiate beauty. It was soothing, the way she moved, the dip and swell of her limbs like rivers; her forms were all grace and elegance, swirled wrists, open arms. I saw, when she called the water from the pond, that to her it was more a friend than a force. She made of it not a weapon but a partner, a living thing, an aery shining creature that spoke and sang and danced with her. Spread its wings alongside hers. Katara respected her element, like I never had my own, and to her it was more than a tool—more than a means to an end.

Two months into our—whatever it was, I had begun to notice things. Things about her, once I learned to read between her lines. I looked at her through a new lens, a prism, cut by the sharp sweet blade of her mouth against mine; sitting there, watching her, I saw more than I would have seen two months ago. More than the moving melody of her form. I saw the stitch in her brow with each misstep, minuscule though they were. I saw the bodice of her dress rise with each breath. More than anything, I saw her love for the art, as though it were written on her skin – this impossible, indefinable need to be nowhere else in the world, than right here doing exactly this. I saw the peace it brought her, the sense of solace she found only here. The identity. The safe place.

I wondered if she carried the same prism in her pocket, with her wherever she went. I wondered what she saw in me.

At length, she slung her arm loose from the last stance, cast the water back into the pond. The splash sort of woke me, brought me back from someplace in my head. "Well," she said with a satisfied sigh, stretching her arms above her head, "that's enough of that." She sat down in the grass, legs folded like a pretzel, and threw me an expectant glance. "You want to give it a try?"

"Waterbending? I think I'll pass."

"Don't be obtuse." She rolled her eyes. "How's the lightning coming? Any better?"

"Yeah, actually." My fire had come back easy, outside the asylum; my lightning, not so much. It demanded a focus I had lost. But its makings were always there, twined in bright ropes around my bones—I still felt it all the time, breathing inside of me, and now it came to my fingertips almost on command. Had been for awhile, in fact. Ever since the night of the ball. "Hold on."

I hauled myself up from the ground – how did she always get me to do these things, without my even knowing it? – and stepped forward, away from the trees. To the bank of the pond where she'd stood. First I breathed in, deeply; I laced my fingers, cracked my knuckles, took my stance. Two fingers cocked, I swept one arm in an arc. Though it felt slow, while the current formed, I knew it didn't take but three seconds—a second to swing my arm through the air, breath walled up in my chest. A second for the energy to barrel through my blood. And a second for the bolt to burst free of my fingertips, rolling out in a wild white wave.

When the lightning vanished – quickly as it came – I let out my breath. A dying gasp of electricity clawed at my hand. I wet my lips, and tasted smoke. "Impressive," said Katara, looking as though she actually meant it. "You made good time."

"Not as good as before."

"But good still. You're getting there." She sat back, gazing up at me, a smile playing on her lips. "You remember that day in the garden, right? The one at the asylum? The first time I took you, when it stormed, and you wouldn't go in—when we just _had_ to sit out there forever, so you could watch the lightning?"

"Yeah. What of it?"

"Oh, nothing. Just…reminiscing." Her voice was warm when she said it, knowing. Laughter bubbling up under the words. "You were so _cute_."

Instantly I blanched, scowled. I hadn't been called _cute_ in years. "Was not."

"Were too."

"Shut up!"

Fuming, I swung an arm through the air, sent a lick of blue fire her way. Not to _hurt_ her – never to hurt her – just to make her jump. But I didn't get so much as a flinch. The flame snapped to life, she flicked her wrist, and half a second later it was dead – swallowed up by a stripe of water, flashing past and plinking back into the pond. Her smile became a grin. "Nice try."

"Nice try nothing," I said, suddenly possessed of an idea. Planting my hands on my hips, I jerked my head towards the grass beside me, demanding, "Put that water where your mouth is. We'll see who's _cute_."

Her brow knit. "What? You want to spar?"

"Well, why not? If you_ insist_ upon mocking me, I might as well get a workout in the process." I rocked back and forth on my heels, already eager for the rush of combat. "Come on. What are you, scared?"

For a second, she eyed me quizically, head cocked to one side. Maybe she _was_ scared – more likely, she was thinking about the last time we'd gone head to head, and how that had turned out – but eventually, she got to her feet. "Fine," she said slowly, "but just for fun. No lightning."

"No lightning. No ice." I raised an eyebrow. "No fishbowls this time."

She flashed a smile, turned out her palms. "No chains."

"No—" I cut myself short with a sudden strike, flung out a swipe that nearly singed her before she dodged. Actually caught her off guard, that time. She blinked at me, slack-jawed, and I smiled—and thus the match begun.

We made of the garden an arena, the trees ramparts, the shrubs trenches. The pond was her base, of course, since she hadn't brought her skins. That was good, I figured. Gave me the advantage. Knowing better than to come at her head-on, I availed myself of the landscape, slinging blows from behind boulders and trees; sometimes they grazed her, blackened the hem of her dress. More often, she caught them in midair. Since I wasn't trying to hurt her – only get her to give up, admit I wasn't so _cute_ after all – I had to pull a few punches, but that was all right. This match wasn't about brute force. The aim wasn't to do the most damage, but to devise the best strategy—not to charge like a bull, but prowl like a panther, too fast to be seen through the brush. To breathe softly, watch closely, wait for the right moment to strike. When she'd least expect it. When she'd lowered her hands, glanced away from the trees – and had only a second to duck.

After awhile, I'd lured her close to the pavilion, a ways from the edge of the pond. Scaling its roof, I perched behind a tier and cast fire-whips from both hands, slapping the water from hers before she struck; she drew up another globe and I sliced it clean through. With whips like extensions of my arms – flames snapping at her heels – I drove her into the pavilion. Then I swung down from the tier, leapt onto the steps. Should've had her trapped, there with no water on hand—but she had disappeared.

The pavilion was empty. I found myself glaring at nothing. "Nice try," I snapped as I went inside, eyes darting up into domed ceiling, circling the pillars. "You don't _really_ think I'm going to—"

Suddenly, my voice became a breathless squeak. An embarrassing noise, like a mouse. But I couldn't _help_ it—I didn't know where she'd come from, or how she'd managed to hide, but out of the blue she was behind me and I felt her fingers on my neck. Not as if she meant to choke me. Just a firm, gentle grasp, fingers pressed to either side, about an inch beneath my ears – but that was enough. "Actually," she said very sweetly, into my ear, "I do."

I grit my teeth, clutched at her hand with mine. She wouldn't let go. Were she anyone else, I'd have turned those fingers to ash. "Let me go!"

"Not until you admit I won."

"That's not fair! You're cheating!"

I could hear the smile on her face, almost a smirk. "You said _put that water where your mouth is_," she informed me. "You never said it was all I could use."

It wasn't that I didn't _want_ to argue. I did. And it wasn't that I didn't feel quite fiercely put out. It was just that I couldn't _stand_ that feeling, her hand clasping the nape of my neck – there was something thin about the skin there, something cripplingly sensitive – and at that point I would've said just about anything, to get her off. "Fine. _Fine._ You win. Now let me go."

Mercifully, she did. But before I could turn on her, ream her out for cheating, I felt the pressure of her hand replaced by her mouth. She slid her arms around me and, maybe by way of apology, set to kissing my neck; just soft light pecks at first, like raindrops, links of a chain. Measured so that I stiffened, almost pulled loose between each one. She'd lay her forehead on my shoulder, breathe against my skin, and then when I stirred kiss me again – each time a little longer, a little warmer, a little sweeter. Each time sending flutters through my stomach, tingles down my spine. Melting me like sugar on her tongue.

Soon enough, she had me pinned against a pillar, kissing me for real. Honeyed, open-mouthed. Waxing-moon slow. It was easy to get lost in her, forget the match, forget my anger; after five minutes, sparring was the last thing on my mind. Ten and I wasn't sure I had a mind at all. I wound my arms around her shoulders, pulled her as close as I could—felt her heart pound against mine. It was always like getting a fix, with her. Like her scent, her breath, the taste of her tongue was a drug, and every second I spent without it, I spent in withdrawal

After a long time – maybe ten minutes, maybe ten years – she broke off gently, looked me in the eyes. Pressed her forehead to mine. "Azula," she said softly, in that knee-weakening way she had. "I didn't mean to mock you. When I…when I said you were cute."

I leaned in and kissed her again. "Whatever."

"No, I mean it. I want you to know." She smoothed my hair back from my face. "When I thought about that day in the garden, I…thought about how _happy_ you were, then. It was…the first time I'd seen you so happy, in a long time. That was why I sat out there so long." I saw the memory in her eyes, sparkling like prisms. The faintest smile tugged at her lips. "And—I don't think it was the _first _time I saw it, in the asylum. I _know_ it wasn't the first time ever. But I remember, that day—watching the lightning—you had the most beautiful smile."


	11. Azula Bakes a Cake

Spikesagitta: Thanks for all the reviews, for one thing, and as for the kickass = lesbian debate – I think the reasoning is that, when a guy encounters a girl who's tougher than he is, his masculinity is threatened. As in, it's not nearly as embarrassing for a guy to get beat up by another guy as it is for a guy to get beat up by a girl. So he masculinizes her by labeling her a lesbian, under the (incorrect, of course, but stereotypical) belief that lesbians are "manly" anyway. It's kind of hard to explain, but…that's my best effort. ^_^; In any case, it's not exactly a central plot element, so don't overthink it.

I'll come right out and say it: this chapter is the fluffiest fluff that ever fluffed. I enjoyed writing it, though. Also, as in _Citadel_, this is the point at which time gets a little hazy; Azula mentions in this chapter that she doesn't keep count, so again, as long as she doesn't _say_ it's been a specific number of days or weeks, as much time can pass between chapters as you'd like.

Also, I hadn't planned to do a soundtrack or anything, but there was one song I just couldn't resist linking now (on Youtube as /watch?v=1lqfQi7146U). It's just so meaningful in the context of this chapter – really communicates the message I was trying to get across here.

**11. Azula Bakes a Cake**

One morning I woke up in her bed, and found her gone. We did that a lot, sleeping over – had been for months now, five or six or fifty-six. I didn't keep count. And most mornings, she didn't wake before I did, little moonflower that she was. Most mornings, I had the pleasure of rousing her. But on this particular day, my eyes blinked open to an empty bed, and a note in her hand on the pillow: _in the kitchen. _

_In the kitchen? _What reason did she have to be in the kitchen? Having nothing better to do, I figured I'd find out. I scrubbed my face, combed my hair, pulled on a dress – given the trend of sleepovers, we'd begun keeping clothes in each other's rooms – and headed down the hall, to the stairs adjoining the kitchen. Usually, it was packed with a flock of servants, cooks and maids all wedged in like tinned fish. Everybody trussed up in aprons, wielding spoons and serving platters, juggling pots and skillets and trying to keep things from boiling over. But when I opened the doors that morning, every last one seemed to have vanished – leaving only Katara, poring over a round metal pan.

"Hey! Look who's finally up!" She set down the pan to come over and kiss me, with a mouth that tasted like molasses. Over her dress she wore an apron, presumably bummed off one of the cooks, and already it was coated in flour. "You going to help me bake?"

For the moment, I ignored the question, running my tongue over my lips. "You taste like molasses," I informed her. "Why do you taste like molasses?"

"Probably because I'm baking a molasses sponge cake." She sucked something brown and sticky from the tip of one finger. "And of course, I had to sample my supply."

"And…you're doing this _why_?"

"I know I told you, Azula. Everyone's coming over tonight." She _had_ told me. I'd been trying to forget. "Don't make that face at me. We're all going to be together again, for the first time in a month, and this time they're going to stay awhile – so I want to kick it off with something special."

I couldn't help it. The very thought warped my brow into a scowl. Her friends came by a lot – _friends_ meaning Aang, of course, and her brother and his girlfriend, and the blind girl – and that I could handle, so long as they came and went. I could hide out a day or two. But this time they were coming to stay, for a week or maybe even longer – not only that, but they were staying in the palace, which reduced me to a prisoner in my suite. That is, unless I wanted to _integrate_ even further, by actually accepting one of Katara's many invitations to get to know them. Which I didn't, and wouldn't. Maybe I didn't have much pride left, but I thought I might choke on the dregs.

"Fine. But why do _you_ have to make it? Just put in an order with the cooks."

She rolled her eyes, as though I should know better. "If I don't make it myself, it won't be _special._ Duh." Heading over to the counter, she picked up what looked like a long metal spoon, only with a wire whorl where its bowl should be. "Anyway," she said, waving the tool at me, "I've only just floured the pan. I could use your help separating the eggs."

So _that's_ what that was. An egg separator. "I don't know, Katara," I answered, skeptically eyeing the thing. "I'm not much of a baker."

"I know, I know. You're a pampered princess, and you've never so much as set foot in a kitchen." She grinned and handed me the tool. "Trust me. It'll be fun."

Eggs, along with ice and meat, were kept downstairs in the palace icehouse, in crates shipped in from the farms once a month. She had a bowl of them up here. Five, and we had to separate all of them – the whites into one bowl, the yolks into another. I couldn't see how this was _fun._ "Okay, just hold it over this bowl," she said to me, sliding a glass mixing bowl beneath the separator. "And that's all. I'll do the first one."

She rapped an egg on the edge of the counter, then cracked it open over the separator. I watched its innards tumble into the spiral, slimy whites dripping down through the wire, yellow yolk staring up at us like an eyeball. "Appetizing."

"Isn't it? Now quick, dump out the yolk in the other bowl, before it falls through."

I did that, and we repeated those steps three more times; she'd break an egg over the coil, the whites would drain into one bowl, and I'd drop the yolk into another. Simple enough, if not exactly thrilling. But when we were down to the last egg, she held it out to me. "Here, you do it," she said, less an offer than an order, as she plucked the separator from my hand. "Go on."

I frowned at the egg a minute, first. I'd never especially liked eggs. They were such feminine things, so fragile; when I used to play in the garden, I'd smash whole nests full of them. "Fine," I said sourly, cracking the shell with just my thumbs, "but don't blame me if…"

The words died on my tongue. I'd meant to say _if I screw up_, because I was sure I would – my hands were meant for hurling blows, not cracking eggs – but sure enough there sat the yolk, an unblinking eye. Katara smiled as she tipped it into her bowl. "All right, now you start whisking the whites, and I'll add the sugar and salt."

"What? What does _whisk_ even mean?"

"It's like whipping."

"Katara," I said flatly, "I don't know _how_ to whip egg whites. I've never whipped anything but a mongoose-lizard, and I'm pretty sure it's not the same thing."

Shaking her head, she passed me another metal tool, this one with a short handle topped by a tangle of wire loops. "Here. I'll show you." She slipped behind me and laid her hand over mine, the one holding the whisk. With her chin resting on my shoulder – her mouth so near my ear – I could almost feel her smile. "Do it fast," she told me, working her hand and mine in quick, light circles through the whites, "but gentle. You don't want to beat them too hard. When we're done, they should be dense enough to peak, but still shiny – easy enough, right?" For a minute longer, she went on steering me, her sticky, floury fingers clutching my fist. Her breath fluttering my hair. Then she sort of laughed, and planted a kiss beneath my ear, and floated away to find the sugar.

After she'd poured in the sugar, and the salt, and after I'd whisked it for awhile – she was right, it really wasn't that hard – it looked like she'd said it would. Like a bowl of snowy hills, glossy and smooth. We set that aside and she took her turn with the egg yolks, beating them with more sugar, while she instructed me on the next steps. "We need half a cup of molasses, two teaspoons of lemon juice, and one teaspoon of grated lemon peel. You can handle that, can't you?"

"I can figure it out." There was a lemon on the counter, on the tray with the other things, and a grater. I got to work over a little bowl, scraping the rind over the grater's teeth, watching it shed slivers of skin. "By the way," I added, "why are you doing this so early? I thought your friends weren't coming until tonight."

"Well, they're not, but—it's not exactly early. Didn't you look outside?" I shrugged, because I hadn't. "It's past noon."

My first instinct was to scoff. "No, it's not."

"What, you think I'm lying? You slept way late this morning, Azula. When I got up at ten, you were out cold."

"But that's…" My mouth dropped into a frown. Not upset so much as bemused, at this fact that simply couldn't _be_ a fact – so much so that I nearly grated my fingers, lost in thought. "That doesn't make any sense," I announced, having pondered it, as I moved on to measuring out the molasses. "I don't sleep in. I never have."

"Well, you did today. And don't kill me, but I have to say it – I thought it was _cute_." She sent me a grin. "I don't know, maybe we should quit having sleepovers. I daresay I'm wearing you out."

In my defense, I didn't kill her. Obviously. But if I _did_ fill a teaspoon with molasses, and flick it her way—I think I could hardly be blamed.

When the yolk batter was done – when we'd beaten in the rind, and the lemon juice, and the molasses and flour – we had to fold in the whites, another technique I didn't know. Like the whisking, it wasn't too hard. She poured the finished product into the pan, a tall round one with a hole in the middle, and then it was ready to bake; there was a cast-iron stove in the kitchen, at which she was and rightly should've been somewhat impressed. She certainly hadn't had one in the South Pole. Plus, when she slid the pan onto the rack, I got to light the coals underneath it – one thing I didn't have to be taught.

She glanced into the glass bowl, scraped nearly empty but not quite. After a second's thought, she ran her fingers along the inside, coating them in cake batter. "Ugh." I wrinkled my nose, watching her suck her little finger clean. "Katara, that's gross."

"Oh, come _on_. You've never eaten cake batter before?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I've never been _near_ cake batter before."

"Then it's no wonder you went crazy. You've been intensely deprived." She scooped up more of the batter, held her hand out to me. "I think that's actually a clinical condition, you know. Critical Lack of Batter. You'd better come get some before it gets worse."

She didn't give me a chance to be offended. I didn't even have time to work up a good offended face. Instead, she just popped her index finger into my mouth, before I could so much as back away – and once she did, I forgot to be mad. The batter _was_ good. Maybe not clinical condition good, but _still_. I couldn't believe I'd never tried it. And if I took her by the wrist, slid that finger out slowly – if I ran my tongue from palm to tip, more than once, just to get the last of the batter – I think I could hardly be blamed.


	12. Azula Eavesdrops

**12. Azula Eavesdrops**

I couldn't help it. I didn't _want_ to be around them, any more than I wanted a knife in my gut – but I wanted to know what they were doing. What they were saying. If any of it was about me. So I did something stupid, and childish, and not at all up to my usual standards of cleverness—but in any case, I did it. I eavesdropped.

I hadn't eavesdropped since I was eight. And I felt very much like a little girl, there in the hall outside the parlor, ear pressed to the door. They were in there right now, Katara and her friends, having adjourned from the dining room; they were in there and they were eating her cake, _our_ cake. I knew because I'd heard her bring it in. Of course, _I_ didn't get any – _I'd_ had to eat dinner in my room – but evidently, it was good.

"I don't know, Katara," I heard her brother quip at one point, after taking a third slice. I recognized his voice – dumb as a sack of bricks. "This is _really_ good. Are you sure _you're_ the one who made it?"

"Actually, no, Sokka. I'm not sure. I guess I _imagined_ all that work I did, just so you could stuff your face." Then, as if she'd read my mind, she said what I'd been mentally adding all along. "If you don't believe me, ask Azula. She helped me."

The oaf nearly choked on his cake. "_Azula_? She probably poisoned it!"

"Don't be stupid. Of course she didn't poison it."

"Well, did you _watch _her?"

"Sokka!"

I heard a shove, a clatter of plates and Zuko's sigh, the one that went along with him shaking his head. "I still can't believe you got her to help you," he said dryly. "I didn't think she knew what a kitchen _was_."

Other than that, I didn't come up. Which was a relief, in some ways – I didn't know what I was hoping for, but that cake exchange wasn't it – and maddening in others. Still, I lingered outside and eavesdropped, because there was nothing else to do. I was going stir-crazy upstairs. Usually, I could busy myself drawing, or reading, or working on my kata. Usually there was plenty to do, in my suite of rooms bigger than most houses, but it all seemed pointless and I was restless and I _hated_ the thought of her in there—she was supposed to belong to _me._ She was supposed to like being with _me._ I hated the thought that she might like _them_ more, that she might like—_anything _more, _want _anything more than me. I had said to her, _this is all I need._ Meant _you are all I need. _Why did Katara need more?

" 'Scuse me. I'm gonna go to the bathroom."

I don't know when it was, but eventually I heard the blind girl haul herself up, and plod towards the door. Starting, I jerked back from it and headed down the hall, as though I'd just been passing by—as if I _didn't_ care what they'd been saying, and I _hadn't_ been outside that door all night, and I _did_ in fact have a shred of dignity left, thank you very much. As if she'd actually buy it.

I should have known better, I guess. Should have remembered. A ways down the corridor, when her stride had caught up with mine, I saw her crack a grin. "Eavesdrop much, Azula?"

"Of course not," I said with a sniff, still trying to play it off. "I was just passing by."

"Yeah, right. For thirty minutes." I had to swallow a groan at that, brace my shoulders before they slumped. I really _was_ pathetic. "Are we really that interesting?"

"_No_," I snapped. "I was just _bored_, okay? I don't care what you people say."

She smirked. "And here you said you were a good liar."

We came to the end of the hall then – where the corridor forked, right for the bathroom, left for the staircase – and that was good, since it'd been less than two minutes and already I wanted to strangle her. Smug little twit. In lieu of roasting her and her smart mouth to a crisp, which I wasn't supposed to want to do anymore, I turned my back and stalked down the left hall. "You know," I heard her say from behind me, "Katara keeps saying you're going to hang out with us, one day. But I guess you're too chicken, huh?"

I knew she was baiting me. I knew I shouldn't have looked back. But _chicken_—that was just too much. "I am _not_ chicken," I spat at her, in exactly the same tone I'd once said it to Katara. I crossed my arms over my chest and fixed her with a glare, never mind she couldn't see it. "I'm just not interested in being part of your insipid little gang."

"Interested enough to eavesdrop on us for half an hour." A smirk crept over her face again, carving itself into her smile. "I'm just saying, it might be fun. You probably have some good stories, right?"

"Excuse me?"

She looked at me – well, not looked at me, just sort of _regarded_ me, in a way both instantly clear and indefinable – as if I were stupid. "You _were_ in the nuthouse, weren't you?"

I snorted. "Yeah. I sat around in a straitjacket and talked to the walls. Great story."

"A straitjacket?"

"No, a trenchcoat. _Yes_, a straitjacket, what else?"

"Nothing, nothing," she said, shaking her head, brushing it off. "That makes sense. I just thought it might be hard fitting one for you, on account of your wings."

"My _what_?"

"Your wings. The silver ones." She cocked her head. "Or don't you have those anymore?"

With that, she turned her back and strolled off down the right corridor, grin spreading like the plague. And I – like the moron she thought I was – just watched her go.

I spent the rest of the night in my room. Mostly pacing. Fuming over the sheer _nerve_ of that girl, speaking to me like that. Hating everything and everyone twice as much as before. It was Katara's night to sleep over in my room, but with her friends here I didn't even have that; of course, she would be sleeping with _him_, because he was her _boyfriend,_ and they were so in love it made me twitch. I wouldn't even see her that night, before they went to bed. He'd have her all to himself. He'd be holding her, kissing her, and when I held her next she'd smell like him—he'd breathe her breath and I'd lie in bed alone, watching the ceiling. He'd put his hands on her, and I'd drown in my own cold sweat.

"Hey."

I was lying on my bed, peeling the scales from my cuticles, sucking at the red skin left behind. I almost didn't hear the door. But when she closed it, quietly, and said _hey _– _hay is for ostrich-horses _– I sat up. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to say goodnight." She climbed onto the bed and kissed me, took my face in her hands. Looked me in the eyes and smiled. "Five minutes, okay?"

Again, she kissed me and I kissed her back, a sweet bitter burn like liquor on my tongue. My hands slid up her arms, wound themselves around her shoulders; I held her tight and kissed her like I was dying, like she could cure whatever was killing me inside. Like I could ever get enough. Maybe it was only five minutes, maybe it was much longer, but in the end I was on my back with her on top of me—twined into me, breathless, hair coming loose from its knot. Heart thrumming an electric beat. When she slowed her pace, I redoubled mine, arched my back into her and bit at her lip. When she strayed, I pulled her back in, carded my hands into her hair. Once she pinned me to the bed, long enough to break the kiss – long enough to surface, as though from the sea, and say _he's waiting for me. _I seized the strap of her dress, and jerked her back down.

We kissed each other numb, and still it wasn't enough. I realized I might as well let her go. It didn't matter how long she stayed; if she left in the end, I still wouldn't sleep. "Katara," I said before she went, "can I ask you something?"

"Mm. If it's quick."

I looked at her, and felt something cold pass through me. Like the wind through a hollow thing. "Do you like your friends more than me?"

She shook her head. "Of course not, Azula," she said, kind of softly. "You know that."

"What about Aang? Do you like _him_—better than me?"

I thought she smiled, but I couldn't be sure. If she did, it was a faint smile. Barely there. "Not _better_, Azula." This time, when she said my name, she said it like she was tired. "Just different."

She kissed me once more. Whispered _goodnight._ Then she left, and it was like I'd blown out a candle; with her gone, everything seemed dark.


	13. Azula in the Pond

**13. Azula in the Pond**

"Come on. Just for five minutes."

"No."

Katara sighed and swam away, for what must've been the fourth time that morning. I didn't even open my eyes. Of all of the castle's gardens, and all of those gardens' ponds, this was the only one deep enough – and supposedly, clean enough – to swim in. Its banks were sandy, its floor a blanket of smooth stones. There were lawn chairs and parasols in the grass. There was even a wooden raft in the water, bobbing with the waves she made – and I couldn't have been less thrilled by any of it.

Except, of course, for the chairs. While Katara swam, I laid on a wooden chaise longue, in my bathing suit and a pair of sunglasses; on the table beside me sat a glass of lemonade, and in the sky above me shone the sun, and that was all I needed. She could have her pond nonsense, if she pleased. I could lie here all day in the sun.

"It would be fun."

I heard the water ripple as she drifted close, yet again. I didn't look up, but I could picture her – arms on the grass, crossed over the pond's edge. Hair floating on its skin. Unfortunately, the chairs were set up by the deep end, so she could hang there and needle me without washing ashore. "I've been swimming before, Katara," I said. "I know how it would be."

"So you know it would be fun."

"No. I know it would be dirty, and murky, and cold. And a complete waste of my time." I reached for my lemonade, heard ice clinking against the glass. Without so much as cracking an eyelid, I took a long, slow pull from the straw. "Water just isn't my element. Literally."

Things were quiet then, while she circled the pond. Through a sun-drenched haze, I heard cicadas chirp, piping their soprano song through the trees; I heard a soft _slosh_ from the pond, as the water opened and closed around her. Sometimes, she swam lazy laps, sailing like a paper boat around the border of the pond. More often, she dove down into the alcoves, those deep dark places where the water-weeds grew. Where the koi fish slid their scales along her skin. Before going under, she'd draw up a hollow orb of pondwater, sheathe her head in it to seal in the air – that way, she could coast the pond's floor like a fish herself, for long still stretches ten minutes or more. I didn't see the appeal, but she loved it. Seemed loath to surface every time.

But surface she did, to pester me. Like clockwork, she circled round once more. "If you lie there all day," she admonished me, trying a different tack, "you're going to fry."

"Mmm." A smile slid over my face. "No, I'm not. You did my lotion, remember?"

She couldn't argue with that. And to be fair, she didn't try. Just wheeled through the water awhile longer, not going under this time; I could almost hear the gears churning in her head. "You know," she said slyly, when she came back around, "I could _make_ you get in."

I snorted. "And how do you plan to do that?"

The second I asked, I knew I shouldn't have. I heard a splash, and a swirling swoosh, and then I felt something cold snake up one leg—a slick, strong coil of pondwater, tugging at me like a fish on a line. I blinked my eyes wide and pushed back my sunglasses, bolting up in the chair. "Katara!"

She flashed me a grin, twirled her fingers into her palm. The tendril wound its way up to my hip. "Are you _sure_ you're not coming in?"

I'd had enough of this. She was crazy if she thought she could reel _me_ in. Fixing her with a scowl darker than that disgusting pond, I jerked my leg back hard enough to break the water's grip, and the coil shattered into a puddle in the grass. "I swear, Katara," I snapped, eyes slit on her treacherous hands, "if you drag me into that pond, I'll boil us both alive."

Her face crumpled into a frown. Not an angry frown, but a sad one. Somehow, it was _worse_ than an angry frown, and her silence was worse than any outburst. She pulled up an air bubble and vanished into the pond, without another word; in her wake I just sat there, vaguely stunned. Unable to believe I actually felt _sorry_, for making her look at me that way. I'd never felt sorry in my life. And even then, I wasn't sure how genuine it was—whether, when I did something for her, it was really honestly _for her, _or whether it was for me. Because I wanted her around. Lately, I found myself almost constantly confused, as to how good of a person I actually was.

But whatever the reason, I got up. I couldn't believe I was doing it, but I got up, and set my sunglasses on the table, and picked my way through the grass to the pond's shore. As if she'd known I would do it – as if she'd been _waiting_ for me, the little shrew – Katara's head appeared. Just her nose and her eyes, the same deep blue as the pond. Peering up at me. "Just for five minutes," I said.

At that, she leapt out of the water like a dolphin, her smile back in full force. "I knew you'd come around," she enthused as she splashed onto the shore, grabbing my hand, tugging me back in beside her. "Just watch out for the—"

"Aah!" All of a sudden, I tripped on a ledge and found myself face-down in the water, feet floundering for a hold. Apparently, the pond was more deep end than I'd thought. Getting my bearings – peeling my hair back from my face, reminding my legs to tread water – I shot her a wry glare. "Thanks for the warning."

She just smiled at me, and swam away.

I'd meant it, when I said _five minutes. _It wasn't any more fun than I had thought. The pond was cold, albeit not as dirty as I'd feared; when I dipped my head under, I saw nothing but foggy blue, melting into an endless black gulf. I blinked around, exhaled a stream of bubbles. Surfaced with an itch in my eyes. I knew she was somewhere below me, gliding along in the dark, but I couldn't do the same and I couldn't see her. All I could do was float there, like a plank of driftwood—I could _swim_, of course, but what was swimming anyway? Just paddling in circles. Cringing when the koi brushed my feet. Sometimes choking on a gulp of pondwater, flavored with mud and sand.

So I counted out five minutes, and when they were up, climbed onto the raft. At least there I could dry off, warmed by the sun. When Katara swam near, she grasped the beam at the raft's edge, pulled herself partway up – just far enough to lay her head on my stomach, left bare by my bathing suit. Her cheek was warm, her hair wet. My hand slid down to stroke it. "So," she said after a minute, pondwater eyes blinking up at me. "There's something I've been…meaning to tell you."

"Shoot."

She bit her lip. "You're not going to like it."

"Well, you stalling isn't going to make me like it more."

She rolled her eyes, let out her breath. Glanced away for a second, then said, "I'm leaving. The day after tomorrow, for three weeks – I'm taking Sokka and Aang, and we're going home."

"_What_?" I knew it came out a whine, but I didn't care. Heaving something between a groan and a growl, I clapped a hand over my eyes. "You're going _home_?" I moaned, dragging it down over my face. "Home as in _the South Pole_? For _three weeks_?"

"The South Pole. For three weeks."

"_Why_?"

"Because I miss it, Azula." Her gaze skimmed the pond, avoiding mine. Had I been listening, instead of stewing – _three weeks!_ – I might have heard the wistful lilt to her voice. "I haven't been home in _years. _I miss my dad, I miss my gran-gran—I miss everyone I used to know. I want things to be how they used to be, even for just awhile. I want to sleep in my own house again."

"Your _house _is a block of ice!"

She didn't answer that. Just sighed, and laid her head back down on me, and though my brow was still knit my hand returned to her; as I sulked, I began again to stroke her hair. Pushed my fingers through its tangles, damp and thick like a rainforest. And there was only so long I could stay angry, with the weight of her head on me—only so long I could keep tense, with the gooseflesh her breath left on my skin. "You could come with me," she said after awhile.

"You could stay here."

I felt a short, sharp breath escape her nose, like a dart from a straw. She lifted her head, and without thinking so did I; she craned towards me, kissed me, and against my lips hers twitched in a smile. A sort of teasing, knowing grin, that spread to her eyes when she let go. "Oh, Azula," she sighed, in that tone of voice that gave me chills despite the sun. "You must really like having me around."

"I do not," I said indignantly. "It's just—things get boring, without you. I have no one to talk to."

She half-tried to bite back laughter, about as well as she'd suppressed her smile. I mumbled _shut up_, under my breath, and pushed her off the raft.


	14. Azula's Advice

Another reference to _Circles_ here, when Azula mentions that Zuko was the first to see her in the asylum. For anyone who never read it, or did but forgot.

Oh, and [shameless plug] on the extremely slim chance that anyone reading this likes or knows somebody who likes the fantastic manga/craptastic anime Chobits: check out my shiny new fanfic _Dreamers_, fresh out of the oven and chock full of delicious robot angst. [/shameless plug] Fun fact: the Chobits section of this site has less than _two_ percent of the content posted in ATLA. ._.

**14. Azula's Advice**

So this was what my life boiled down to. Eavesdropping.

I mean, what else was there to do? Katara was gone. She wasn't coming back for two more weeks. So yet again, I found myself with my ear pressed to a wall, braced to spring back should someone come by. But this time, the blind girl wasn't there to catch me. This time I wasn't outside the parlor, but the throne room; having chanced to pass it in the middle of a meeting, I hadn't been able to resist. I'd never thought Zuko had the backbone to be Firelord. I could never picture him on that throne. And I'd been _dying_ to see him in action, just to find out if I was right – so I wasn't about to miss this chance.

It was easy enough to hear, through the curtain. I wasn't sure who all was there – most of the generals_ I'd_ known had been dismissed, for a chronic case of loyalty to the old regime – but they sounded important. "Is it really worth looking into?" I heard one of them say, when I first tuned in to the dialogue. "I thought the trend had declined."

"It has. But not nearly enough." I twisted a finger through a loose lock of my hair, wondering when they'd get to what _it_ was. "Loyalist cells persist worldwide. Yes, they've shrunk since the war, but they're still out there, doing damage; they still pose a substantial threat."

"I don't believe that," said the first speaker, vaguely indifferent. "Who exactly _are_ these loyalists? What damage can they possibly do?"

I heard the _thump_ of a fist pounding the map frame, where the council sat while in session. The second voice came back with a vengeance. "Who _are_ they? The governors from the colonies. The Dai Li in Ba Sing Se. Soldiers, sages, the men who once sat where we're sitting now—look, you may not want to believe it, but these people are _real._ They're real and they're angry, still, and most importantly they're _dangerous – _not to us but to the citizens, the people we're supposed to protect. They've given up organized revolt. They're desperate now, hiding in slums and sewers, striking whenever, wherever, _who_ever they can—better for us, maybe, but not for everyone else out there trying to rebuild their lives. Villages are being terrorized. Civilians die every day. Something has to be done."

I had to stifle a snort. Zuko _would_ appoint someone like that. "And what do you suggest we do?" demanded a third voice, all gravel and grit. "As you said, they're all over the world. We've disbanded most of the army. Who are we to send?"

"And even if we hadn't," said someone else, "what use would an army be? We can't send _troops _after a band of—of glorified thugs. We only just dismantled the colonies; no one's going to support occupation."

Another man made a noise of assent. "Some villages have hired bounty hunters. They're taking care of it themselves."

"So why not let them?"

"Because we need to present a united front." Finally, Zuko spoke up. Just when I'd begun to think he'd gone and missed his own meeting. "If we don't protect the people, they don't trust us. They break off and form new countries, new nations one village at a time, and they start off hiring bounty hunters and end up building armies. We've only just united the world, after a hundred years split apart; if we abandon the people now, tell them _take care of it yourselves_, we undo all of that work."

There was a moment of quiet, after that. It was hard to believe they respected him that much, to be silent after he spoke. Harder to believe I saw his point. "So we need to send someone," came a wizened drone, a voice I hadn't yet heard. "Who?"

"Not just some_one_. They'd need backup."

"Well, of course they'd need backup. We'd commission a team. But as we all must know, the keystone of a team is its leader; it's a competent general who must be found."

"Not a general," Zuko cut in, before anyone could agree. "A leader, yes. Not a general. We should be trying to negotiate, not exterminate—not sending out a state-sponsored bounty hunter, just so we can say we're doing something. What kind of message does that send, if we start literally _hunting_ the loyalists? What kind of precedent would we be setting?"

I could almost see the exchange of glances, the uneasy shift in the mood. The gravelly-voiced man cleared his throat. "With all due respect, sir," he said, "these factions _are_ dangerous. They're not afraid to use deadly force. If we confront them, bloodshed may be—unavoidable."

It made sense, at least to me. But Zuko – idealistic, impractical Zuko – wasn't hearing it. "We're not sinking to their level," he said firmly. "We want to move away from violence. Not towards it."

I listened in awhile longer, as they discussed and debated, and at some point moved on. When the meeting adjourned, I lingered by the doorway, watching the council file out. Probably shouldn't have, but I did. As they left, none of them looked at me, but for a sidelong glance – if they saw me at all, they acted as if they hadn't, whether out of fear or contempt I don't know. Only once was I acknowledged, by a man with a long grey beard. The owner of the wizened drone. I didn't know him, but he nodded to me, and said _good morning, princess; _in return I smiled, said _good morning_ back. Then – when the last counsellor had gone – I slipped through the curtain.

The throne room opened before me, a great red mouth striped in gold. Its flames burned low. Like a carcass, it was hollow, soundless save for my steps; the soles of my shoes clicked on the parquet, buffed to an oxblood sheen. I hadn't been here in years, but I had dreamed of it—this room was the blue room, the nexus of my last days. Where I had come apart. Shards of me were still scattered here, cracking beneath my feet. The ghost of me, of who I'd been, lived in these walls – and in the silence, I almost heard her breathe.

Zuko stood over the map, brow knit as usual. I leaned against a pillar, and folded my arms. "Hello, Zuzu."

"What do you want?"

He turned to me with narrow eyes. For a moment I held them, then glanced away; it was stupid but I couldn't look him in the face, at least not for long. He'd been the first one to see me in the asylum. The only one, before Katara. I'd tried to block out that day, the things I'd said, the things I'd _realized_—the way he'd looked at me, before he left. As if he felt _sorry_ for me. "Nothing," I said, with a passable stab at dispassion, watching the light glint on his crown. "How'd the meeting go?"

"Fine, but—" He cut himself off. Eyes on the ceiling, I felt him study me, his frown carving deeper all the time. "Wait. Were you _eavesdropping_?"

I shrugged. "So what if I was?"

"So _don't_." I could feel his glare sharp like a razor, even without looking at him. "Council meetings aren't your business, Azula. Not anymore."

When he said that, I blinked and the room was blue for a second, bright blinding blue. I didn't let it faze me. "Fine," I said nonchalantly, inspecting my fingernails. "I get that. I just thought you'd like to _know_ if your strategy was stupid, and your plans were doomed to fail."

"What do you mean?" he demanded. "What plans?"

"Your plans for the loyalists. You're being naïve." Still examining my nails – _I could do with a manicure_ – I began a slow stroll around the map, musing aloud as I went. "Negotiation is fine," I told him, "but whoever spoke up was right. You'll need a leader _and_ a general, a force that actually poses a threat. If you send in a bunch of pacifists, handing out daisies and beads, _no one's_ going to respect you – and the loyalists will tear them to shreds."

He snorted. "You _would_ say that."

"And you _would _refuse to listen. I'm trying to help you, Zuko. Don't you think I know what I'm talking about?" I rolled my eyes. "If it weren't for Katara, I'd probably be _leading_ the loyalists. I ought to know what they're capable of."

"Azula, just—"

I raised a hand, palm out, to stop him. "Look. This is no skin off my teeth. I don't _care_ if the loyalists go on a killing spree, and everyone says you're the worst Firelord in history—actually, I'd probably enjoy it. So listen to me, don't listen to me. I'm not saying this for my sake." For the second and last time, I looked at him, square in his mismatched eyes. "Bloodshed _is_ unavoidable. These people aren't going to go quietly. I'm not saying you shouldn't _try_ talking to them, since it's a thought _so_ near and dear to your heart – but I _am_ saying that when you're looking for your leader, don't look for a doormat. You'll get someone who can talk _and_ fight, if you know what's good for you. Someone persuasive, but also…intimidating."

I laced my fingers and crackled my knuckles, punctuating my point. Shaking my head at him – _knowing_ he'd ignore my advice – I headed towards the door. "Right," he said as I left, through grit teeth. "Someone like you."


	15. Azula's Home

**15. Azula's Home**

Three weeks. Three weeks and I'd barely seen a soul, holed up in my suite; three weeks and I'd never missed anyone so much. I couldn't sleep without her. I couldn't sit still. But I couldn't focus, either, on anything but how restless I was—how little there was to _do_, without her to take up my time, except wait for her to come back. Except pick at my nails and stew, over what she was doing without me. Work myself into jealous fits.

The one thing I could do was drill myself, over and over. My bending was stronger than ever. My impatience, my paranoia, the ugly dreams that kept me up at night—all of it was fuel for my fire, and I channeled it into every strike. Mother had stopped bothering me, since I couldn't speak without snapping. I'd try to draw and grind the chalk into dust. Drills were the only thing that calmed me, the only thing that held my attention at all – so for that last week I spent my days in the garden, sparring with swallowtails. At least that way I could sleep. I'd exhaust myself, flinging blows at nothing until I couldn't breathe. Until I was too sore to stand, much less throw another punch, and I could drop ragdoll-limp into my bed; that way I welcomed the night, black and dreamless, instead of lying up clawing at an invisible rash.

Surprisingly enough, I could even make lightning. There was a sort of hyper-focus to my restlessness, once I approached it the right way—I was going stir-crazy, sure, but I'd been crazy before. I'd made lightning then. And if I could make lightning out of lunacy, I could make it out of loneliness, too. I could push all that I felt into a climbing current, into my fingers wielded like a blade. I could swing out my arm and crack the sky in two, with a bolt that purged the fever from my brain; every time, my head felt a little clearer, my nerves strung little less tight. It helped me breathe easier, the lightning. It cooled my blood.

And so it was there the last day found me, in the garden, running my drills. Cracking the sky in two. At first, I had counted the days – counted the _hours_, actually, ticked them off with a charcoal stub in my sketchbook – but I'd had to stop, to preserve my sanity. So I didn't _know_ it was the last day. I didn't expect to hear her voice.

"Hey there, lightning bug."

One hand still smoking, I whipped around. Saw her standing there, her hands on her hips, a smile on her face. Stunningly unchanged. "Hey," I replied, through a hard swallow. For once I was lost for words, almost lost for breath; it was all I could do not to stammer. "I didn't, um—I didn't know you were—"

Before I could dig myself deeper, she closed the space between us, and slid her arms over my shoulders, and kissed me like she knew I needed it. Long and slow and sweet. Still, she tasted of tidepools and wildflowers, and still her skin smelled of milk soap; still, one kiss from her wasn't enough. I didn't let her let go. I pushed my hands into her hair, pressed myself against her, felt her heart race with mine. I kissed us both weak in the knees. Until she took me by the shoulders, gently, and pulled back—only just an inch, just enough to breathe. Just enough for her to look at me, with those kingfisher eyes.

"Miss me?" she whispered, her smile playing at her mouth.

"Not really." I leaned in, kissed her eyelid, the bridge of her nose. Felt the flutter of laughter in her chest. "Can you tell?"

"Mmm." She laid her forehead against mine. "You seem so…indifferent."

I could have had her right there, on the grass. Three weeks was long enough to wait. But as ever, she was practical, and our secret paramount; she grabbed my hand and we took the reunion to my bedroom, safe behind closed doors. Where we were free to get…reaccquainted.

"I would've thought you'd be cold," I murmured into her ear, half-smile pressed against her neck. "After so long down there." I laced my fingers through hers, slid my thumb over her palm. Kissed the back of her ear, the soft skin beneath it—breathed her in and kissed her again, again, all the way up her jawline. Up to her mouth, and I kissed her there too. "I'd expected icicles…on your eyelashes…" I wet my lips and pressed my mouth to those, the color of ground coffee, flickering like butterfly wings. "And snowflakes on your lips."

Again, I felt her laughter. "My village is _not_ that bad."

"Whatever." Sliding a hand through her hair, I tipped back her head and dropped kisses all down her neck, a flurry of whispersoft pecks. Scattered like they were seeds, and her skin the wet dark earth. "So long as it's out of your system."

A sigh rose and fell in her chest, fluttering my hair. Not an angry sigh, not a sad sigh, but a sigh softened by a smile—the kind I could hear in her voice. "You know, that's the funny thing about home," she said to my canopy, as I laid a new trail of kisses over the brown plane of her neck. "It never gets out of your system."

_Home. _The word hung for a long time in the air. As I kissed my way along her collarbone, sucked up a bruise in the crook of her neck – as her skin prickled, her back arched, her sigh broke into a gasp – I turned it over in my mind. What was _home_, anyway? For awhile, the asylum had been home to me, if only because I hadn't known any better. So too had the palace been home, for fourteen years; I'd thought it was _coming home_, coming back here, but it felt so foreign now. Thick with the dust of a bitter past. The palace was Zuko's home now, and I was a mismatched puzzle piece—a shard of glass with no pane to return to, save the creases in her palms. The smell of her, lilac and rosewater. The rain and jasmine on her tongue. Her arms were the only place I felt right, the closest thing to home I had. And in that moment, drowning in her sea, I felt sure I'd never get her out of my system.

I lifted my eyes to hers, blue half-moons blinking down at me. Dizzy with gooseflesh and sweat. "If things could be the way they were," I said softly, toying with the charm hanging from her necklace, "and I were a real princess again…" I ran my thumb over the disc's grooved surface, tracing the swirls. "I would send a fleet to the South Pole, and burn it all to ash. So you'd never leave me again."

The thought came to me in a burst of envy, like those I'd woken to for three weeks. From that ugly place in my heart. And I thought she'd get mad, when I said it, because I shouldn't have—but that was the thing about Katara. She made me want to tell the truth.

"I should be," she sighed after a moment, "_so _angry right now." She took my hand in hers, extracting my fingers from the charm. With lily-petal lips, she kissed the tips of the first two – my lightning bug fingers, she said. "But I guess that's your way of being romantic."

I opened her hand and placed a kiss in her palm, edged with a waxing grin. "You know me too well."


	16. Azula and the Red Dusk

Sure would be nice to be seeing more reviews about now… ._.

Katara's argument against leaving Aang in this chapter is basically the reason I ship Kataang. Not that they're not a cute couple or anything, but—it really does seem cruel, you know?

**16. Azula and the Red Dusk**

At some point we slept, though I don't know when. I know I woke up around dusk. When I stirred, I found my arms wrapped around me as usual, pins-and-needles numb; I wrinkled my nose and worked them loose, flexed the tingles from my fingers. Of all the tenacious, insidious things I'd encountered, muscle-memory had to be the worst.

I sat up and blinked towards the window, where the last rays of sunset breached the glass. She stood in front of it, a silhouette. The falling sun, between the crags of the caldera, wreathed her head like a halo—a crown of blood-red light. "Hey," I yawned, fisting my hands and stretching my arms. "What's up?"

She didn't answer, at first. Just stood in silence, her reflection grave in the glass; even when she spoke, she didn't look at me. "This isn't right."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we've established that. We're doing it anyway."

"_No_, I mean—" She bit back the words with a hard breath, sharp as the pins still crawling over me. Thin like a storm-battered reed. "I'm sorry," she said weakly, shoving her hands through her hair. "I'm sorry. It's just—watching you sleep like that—it freaked me out, okay? It made me think."

Against my will – _why does she have to do this _now_? _– a frown carved its way into my forehead, began to crack my groggy calm. "I can't help it."

"I know. It's not your fault. But that's just _it_, Azula, that's—we've been pretending like you're fine now, like this is a natural next step. Like you don't need help anymore. Like we've gone from that place." With every word, the notch in my brow cut deeper, and it might as well have been with a knife. With every word, I felt the sandpaper scrape of condescension, the cool dark antiseptic sting. "But I'm looking at you, and I—and I'm thinking, _who am I kidding here?_ It feels like it's been forever, but—but how long have you lived out here, _outside_? How long have you spent out of a straitjacket? Not long enough to forget. Not long enough to quit sleeping like that, like…nothing ever changed." She shook her head. "You're not ready for this. This isn't right."

I felt a growl climb my throat. "Don't tell me," I snapped, before it could tear loose and make things even worse, "what I'm _ready_ for."

She turned and looked at me with blue eyes gone grey, as if the weight of her thoughts had bled them dry. "This wasn't supposed to happen," she said, like she hadn't heard me at all. "This isn't how it's supposed to be. How am I healing you, now? How am I helping you?"

"You—you—" I stopped short. Blinked at her, standing there ringed in red, and narrowed my eyes. Suddenly, everything made sense. "This isn't about me," I said slowly. "This isn't about me at all." I wet my lips, got to my feet. Heard my voice drop by degrees. "You just spent three weeks with Aang. And I'll bet you spent all those _nights _with him, in your little block of ice—he's got you feeling _guilty_ now, doesn't he? He's got your conscience up."

Sure enough, she flushed when I said it, the second I spoke his name. I'd always had good aim. "I—I just—" She swallowed, pushed her hands through her hair again. Flicked her gaze to the ground. "I feel like I've made all the wrong choices. I haven't done right by him. And I haven't done right by you."

"And you feel guilty."

"Well—well yeah, I feel guilty! How could I not?" She bit her lip. "I told you before I'm not a liar. At least—I don't want to be."

I shrugged. "So don't be. Break up with him." For half a second, I nearly smiled. "Be mine all the time."

She looked at me as though I'd slapped her. As though, instead of _break up with him_, I'd said _stab him with an ice pick, and leave his corpse for the wolves. _"That would be cruel."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, come off it. People break up all the time."

"No—no, you don't understand. I could _never_—do that to him." Her voice crept hushed from one word to the next, blue eyes saucer-wide. Slowly, her head rocked from side to side, like a weathervane in the wind. "After everything we've been through together? After everything he's done? After all that he lost, all that he _gave_—after he carried us all, when he was so young? After he bore that weight on his shoulders, to keep us safe…to keep _me_…safe…" The swaying of her head ground to a halt. "I was all he ever wanted. To take that away—it would be cruel."

For a moment, I just looked at her. Watched her stare at the ground. Then, I ran my tongue over my teeth, and spoke with the vinegar I tasted there. "So you didn't mean it, then. When you said _you don't have to earn love_."

"_No_, I just—"

"So you're a _prize_ now, is that it? You're a trophy. Save the world, win Katara; she'll feel too _guilty_ to say no." The ire roiled in me like poison, climbed the cage of my ribs. I remembered that day in the garden, the smell of clover on my hands; I remembered how _hard_ it had been, for me to believe her then. _Worthless honeyed lies. _" 'What do you mean, 'anything worth loving'? Do you have to _do_ something to be loved?'" I sneered her words in a singsong, still clear as a bell in my head. A hollow iron bell, gone tuneless with rust. "Hypocrite."

"I am _not_ a hypocrite!" she burst out. "It's not about _earning_ me! Can you—can you even _imagine_ how he would feel, if I said I was leaving him for _you_?" This time she sounded wild, wounded. As if she were taking up arms on his behalf. "Do you know how much that would hurt? To lose someone you love – the _only_ one you love – to someone who _hates_ you? Someone who was your _enemy_, who—who still won't even _speak_ to you—who tried to _kill_ you? Do you think I want that for him?"

"I don't know. Do you want it for me?"

She didn't respond, at first. Just sort of eyed me, her gaze too narrow for her face. I stood there and I glared back at her, unflinching, waiting for her to answer me – and when she did, it was with startling bite. "It's not the same."

I snorted. "Okay, so he never tried to _kill_ me. He was too sanctimonious for that." I took three silent steps closer, into the last shaft of scarlet light. Close enough to peer into her eyes, glittering wet, almost violet in the red sun. "But other than that…how is it different, Katara? How can you say I don't know how he'd feel, when I feel it every time you choose him over me?"

"It's different," she said quietly, "because you don't love me."

It was like I'd been punched in the gut. Honestly, I didn't _know_ if I loved her; I'd never asked myself. I never thought I'd _have_ to know, not now, so soon—never saw myself standing here, drenched in blood-light, hearing her say _you don't love me._ Like she'd known all along. Like I couldn't if I tried. "You don't know that."

"But you do." Her voice came sure as a dagger, sure as a nail. Sure as an axe splitting me down the middle, to remind me how empty I was. "You don't love me, Azula," she said, not cruel, not cold, just sure. "Maybe you love—being _with_ me. Maybe you even love me as a friend. But you don't love me like he does. You don't want to spend your life with me, be an old woman by my side; you don't want to make a _family_ with me. You wouldn't even set foot near my home. You won't hold me when I'm sad, or sick, or when I'm angry and I don't know why – you won't listen to me, when I say things you don't want to hear."

A bitter smile nicked her face like a razor, almost too briefly to see. "You don't know all of me. You don't know because you're not supposed to know, because I didn't _want_ you to know – because this was always about _you_, about me helping you, and it wouldn't help to show my ugly side. But Aang's seen me at my worst, time and time again, and he still wants all of me. Forever." She sighed. "You just want to—I don't know, you want to make out with me, for as long as it feels good. But that's not love, Azula. And I'm not going to leave him for that."

I don't know why, but for a split second I was back in the plaza, bathed in a different red light. Being told, _again again again_, that I wasn't good enough.

"Get out."

I blinked myself back. Spat the words like venom. And she obeyed.


	17. Azula's Nightmare

So I really, really wanted to give Azula an opportunity to confront Ozai in the context of this story. But in the end, I was forced to acknowledge that her actually going to visit him in prison would introduce an entirely new plot point/thread; she'd have to spend a chapter getting the idea, a chapter getting permission, a chapter actually _going_, several chapters dealing with the fallout of having gone - the point is, I realized I couldn't just shove it in randomly, and I also realized it didn't really fit in with the plot as it was unfolding. This story is partially about Azula's relationship with Katara, and partially about Azula's relationship with Ursa, but for better or for worse, I seem to have decided that it's not about her relationship with Ozai. Not that that's not a topic worthy of exploration; it absolutely is. But you have to pick and choose with plot threads, and as I said, I've made my choice.

ANYWAY - the point is, this chapter is my substitute for the whole Azula-faces-Ozai sidetrack I wanted so badly to write. It's also rather short. ._. Sorry about that.

Edit: I...kind of thought this would be obvious, but at least one person was clearly confused, so for anyone else who is or might be, the person who comes in at the end is Katara.

**17. Azula's Nightmare**

_"But I thought we were going to do this together."_

_In the dream, everything is red. Red like crushed rubies, ground up and strewn through the sky; red like ripe roses, thousands of them bobbing on the waves. Red like war paint. Red like rust. And when Father answers me, his voice is red like a cloven heart. "My decision is final."_

_In contrast, my voice is a hollow chime, tinkling in a weak wind. It crawls from my throat thin and pale. "You can't treat me like this," I say to his back. I _know_ what he'll tell me, I've been here before—I know it's pointless, talking back, but I can't stop. It's as if I'm a doll. A tin soldier wound up with a key, marching so long as it turns. "You can't treat me like Zuko." _

_"And why is that?" The key clicks still and I freeze, suddenly numb. He wasn't supposed to say that. "You're worse than Zuko now." _

_"I—I—"_

_"Do you deny it?" He turns and looks at me, and when he does his eyes are red. Dark, cold, hard red, like blood spilt and gelled over – almost black. "Zuko is Firelord. What are you?" _

_I've never been speechless before him. Never allowed myself to be. If I was silent, it was a wise silence, a cool processing calm; if I was silent it was out of respect, or lack of need to speak. Not because I had no words. Not because I was dumb like a beast, blinking down the shaft of a crossbow. _

_"You are _nothing_," he says in my silence, with a contempt so thick it's almost bored. Like I should know this already. Like I'm not worth the wasted breath. "A failure. A disgrace. You have brought shame upon your nation and your family; you have been a disappointment to me." His lip curls around the words. "You never deserved to wear my crown."_

_I feel dizzy. "That crown was a lie."_

_"To keep you out of my way. Because you were no longer useful." His gaze drifts above me, beyond me, to the plaza swarmed with courtiers on their knees. To the sky, now pulsing, heaving red—the great sliced gut of a sow. "Tell me, Azula," he asks, without sounding close to curious, "did you really think I _loved_ you? That you were more than a tool to me?"_

_"I…never…"_

_"Did you think," he cuts in and he might as well, because I can't speak and I can't breathe and soon enough I'm going to be sick, "that _she_ loved you? That peasant trash? Were you blind enough to believe you _meant _something to her—that she might make your breath worth drawing?" He snorts. "Stupid girl. If you were as clever as you think you are, you'd have slit your own throat there in the courtyard, the second your brother showed his face. Better to die, than become what you have. Nothing but a blight on the world."_

_All around us, the world comes apart at its seams. Like wax, the courtiers melt in their vestments, bubble down to a roiling red ooze; the plaza, the ocean, the waiting warship all crumble into smoke. A thick scarlet fog, rolling into the sky. "What did you expect, letting her drag you from the dirt? Did you think you _belonged_ in her world? Did you think she saw _value _in you, where there was none?" Something wet wells in my eyes, not tears. I touch my face, and my fingers come away red. "You should have stayed in the asylum. There, at least, you could have rotted in peace." _

I woke up screaming.

But only at first. First came screams, then sobs, choked out in wet gulping heaves; crumpled against my headboard, I heard myself keen and wail like a dying thing, and I didn't even try to stop. Knew I couldn't, anyway. The tears were visceral, like grappling for ground halfway through a fall, gasping for breath in a lightless sea. It was stupid to cry, I knew it. Tears didn't help anything. Tears made you ugly, tears made you _weak_—but I didn't even try to stop.

Over the sound, I didn't hear the door open. Didn't hear her speak, if she tried. Didn't feel her weight on my bed. I didn't know she was there, until she touched me – just slid her arms around me and held me, tight to her chest. Stroked my hair, my sweatdamp shuddering back. Made those sounds like waves washing ashore. I'd never cried in front of anyone, not when I was all there; if tears were weak, then tears against her gown were weaker, my face in her shoulder weaker still. If tears were ugly, I was a monster. But she held me anyway, as I shook with sob after sob, and she didn't ask me to explain, and she didn't try to make me stop. Just held me. And I didn't pull away.


	18. Azula Under the Stars

Yeah, see, my thinking was similar to LeoCookie's – that it would have to be Katara because, if it were Ursa, it wouldn't make sense for Azula to behave as she does. I mean, honestly, which scenario sounds more plausible to you: when notcrazy!Azula cries for the first time in front of someone else, that "someone else" is the person who has, over a period of what's implied to be several years, become her therapist, her closest friend, _and_ her girlfriend/lover/indiscriminate romantic interest? Or…when notcrazy!Azula cries for the first time in front of someone else, that "someone else" is the person with whom she's always had and still has a strained (at best) relationship, in whose company she spends as little time as possible, and with whom her conflict hasn't even been close to resolved? ._. Here's a hint: it should be the first one.

Oh, and as for this chapter: it's dedicated to anyone who's been wondering, all this time, how I could possibly write a fanfic with Katara as a main character, and forget to let her whine about her mom at least once.

**18. Azula Under the Stars**

We never spoke of that night. The next morning, I woke in her arms, and kissed her eyelids until they flickered; it was as if we'd never said the things we said. When we got up, I wiped the tears from my cheeks, and it was as if they'd never been. We didn't talk about it, any of it. Ever. Just went on with our lives, nothing hurt, nothing changed – no apologies, and no grudges.

And so a week's time found us outside again, under the stars. We weren't in the gardens that day, though. Having decided that we needed more fun in our lives, she'd packed a picnic and we'd hiked out to the cliffs, just as the sun began to set; spreading our blanket on a smooth shelf, we ate watching it sink. Fall was coming around again, the dusk growing thicker, the moon rising sooner. That night, it peered into the ocean's mirror, almost full but not quite – not a pearl, not a lantern, but a rubbed-down cake of soap, a white peach bitten on one side. Adrift in a sea of stars. From our blanket, we could see it catch on the tides, a stripe of light breaking with each wave. Our basket emptied, we lay there and just watched them crash, over a shore too far below to see—me on my back, Katara nestled against me, and both of us silent as the sky.

After awhile, her gaze turned to the stars. Hanging like jewels in the clouds – wreathing the soap-cake moon – they glittered in her eyes. "Azula," she said quietly, "where do you think we go when we die?"

What a question. I certainly didn't plan to die soon, and no one who meant much to me ever had; death had always seemed too distant to dwell on. "How should I know? The spirit world, or something." I wrinkled my nose. "You're dating the Avatar. Shouldn't you know this stuff?"

She sighed. "I was being serious."

"Why?"

Rolling with a soft _thump_ onto her back, she laced her hands over her stomach, blinked back up at the stars. I followed her eyes, tried to see what she saw – how it was that those stars, nothing but sun through a colander, could put her in this mood. "I don't know," she said, a little absently. "The stars, I guess. They make me think."

"About dying?"

"About my mom." Almost reflexively, one of her hands went to her necklace. She caught and turned the charm between her fingers, as if to be sure it was still there. "I…kind of have to believe it's somewhere good, you know? I want to. Because of her."

"Yeah. I never really thought about it." I sort of shrugged. "No one I knew ever died. Except my cousin, and my grandpa. And they didn't really matter."

There was silence again, then, for awhile. From the corner of my eye, I saw her twirl the charm slowly, like a gear grinding in a machine. Like one of the cogs in her head, spinning all the time. "Have you told her yet?" she finally said, less to me than the stars.

_Not this again._ I feigned puzzlement. "Told who what?"

"You know _who_, Azula. Your mother. Have you talked to her? Told her about the dreams?" Before I could shoot her a glare, she sighed, flashing her palms to the sky. "Or the ghosts. Whatever you want to call them."

I closed my eyes. "No. And I'm not going to."

"Why not?"

"Because I _can't_, Katara." She was like a dog with a bone. Patience ebbing by the second, I sat up to fix her with a frown. "Because I don't _want_ to. I see no need to—to subject myself to _that woman's_ presence, just to sit around and talk about how crazy I used to be. Just to say 'hey, guess what, I lost my mind because you didn't love me.' Who says she even wants to hear it? Who says it'd do any good?"

"I do. Because she does. And it will." She pulled herself up beside me, her tone tender, her eyes soft. I held them for a moment, still with a scowl, then glanced away – out towards the ocean, to the column of moonlight slicing through it.. "Ursa loves you," she said gently. "She wants you to be able to love her. And she wants to _know_ you…_so_ much." I felt the weight of her hand on my shoulder, the rhythm of her thumb sliding back and forth. I didn't turn – didn't look at her, as she spoke – but I didn't jerk away. "I _know _you care about her. You know it, too. You wouldn't have seen the things you saw, if you didn't; if there wasn't a part of you that loved her, and believed she could love you, then there wouldn't have been a woman with yellow eyes. She wouldn't have told you what she told you. It wouldn't have hurt the way it hurt."

I said nothing. I didn't even know if she thought I should. In any case, after a moment she went on talking, and rubbing my shoulder with her thumb. "Do you remember that day in the asylum?" she asked. "When I said 'they all want to visit'? 'Some because they need proof we've made progress; some because they just want to see you'?"

I nodded.

"Well, she just wanted to see you. Really bad." I swallowed and looked down at my nails, shoved one beneath another to pick out imaginary dirt. "She understood, when I told her no. But she and I…we talked a lot, while you were in the asylum. There was a lot she wanted to know. And she told me, again and again, how much she _envied_ me – because you trusted me, and you talked to me. Because I could get inside your head. Because I was close to you like she'd never been, like you'd never _let _her be—and she said—she'd give just about anything, to have what I had with you.

"But I never told her about the ghosts. I thought—it would only hurt her, to hear it, with you still in such a bad place. And I thought it was your right to tell her, not mine – that when you were ready, she needed to hear it from you. And you needed to say it out loud."

"Okay." It came out louder, sharper than I meant it to. I sighed and pushed my hands through my hair. "Okay. I get it. That's enough."

I drew my knees to my chest, and wrapped my arms around them. For the first time that night, a cool wind blew in from the ocean, lifting my hair off my back. "You're lucky, you know," she said, her voice almost a whisper. "Or—maybe you don't know it, but you are. If it were that simple for me, to get my mom back – if all I had to do was _say _something – I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Letting out my breath – a short, hard breath, like the stroke of a hatchet – I glanced at her. "Look, do we have to keep talking about this? I said I get it. I just—I don't want to _do_ this right now."

"Well, if not now then when?"

"I don't _know_! Just—just not now."

I laid back down on the blanket, facing away from her. From here all I could see was a stone face, walling the shelf where we sat—that and a smattering of stars above it, but none of the ocean, no sliver of moon. But that was all right. I'd never much liked the sea, anyway; it had always made me feel small. "I know it's hard," she said softly, the warmth of her mouth close to my ear. I felt her slide down beside me, along me, press herself up against me and slip her arms over mine. Push her head into the crook of my neck. "I do."

"Then you know why I can't do it."

Against my shoulder blade, I felt her heart pulse, keeping a warm steady beat. When she spoke, she sounded almost sad. "I didn't know you that well before the asylum, Azula," she murmured, into the down at the nape of my neck. "But if there was one thing I did know, it was that you never backed down from anything. Not because it was _hard._ You weren't afraid of a challenge, you weren't afraid to—to do hard things." She pressed a kiss against my shoulder. Long and lingering, like she didn't want to let go. "What happened?"

With a shrug, I rolled over, blinked into her eyes. Those port-in-a-storm, light-in-the-darkness eyes. Blue as tourmaline. They fluttered shut when I kissed her, and their lashes tickled my cheeks; I tasted oranges in her mouth. "I don't know," I said, flicking my tongue over my lips. Thinking that I could forgive her for pushing me, for not hearing when I said _that's enough_. That was just how she was. "You?"


	19. Azula's Last Light

To the anonymous whiner (thanks a lot, by the way, for declining to review until you find something to gripe about): I would think that someone smart enough to use a word like "orthography" would be smart enough to realize that Azula's not the most reliable narrator in the world. Did you stop to think that her_ saying_ the conflict was resolved doesn't necessarily mean it was? Did you stop to think that it might have repercussions that will color the rest of the story? Or are you the kind of reader who demands that any conflict raised in one chapter be completely resolved in the next, discarding the possibility that – as so often occurs in real life – it might _appear _to have simmered down only to surface later on?

To N3phtys: I'm sorry you find this story "stupid", and I'm sorry you find my writing so shallow, and I'm sorry you haven't been able to perceive any character development. Maybe this chapter will provide you with the conflict you're "craving." Maybe it won't. I don't know, I'm not you; I can't say. But what I can say is this: if you don't like it, please feel free not to read it.

To anyone else who might have issues with this story, or the past few chapters, or me or my writing or anything else: I don't mean to give the impression that I'm not open to _constructive _criticism. If you have intelligent, well-thought out suggestions as to how I can grow as a writer, and can manage to word them in a way that's not incoherent, bitchy or immature (or some combination of those three), I'm more than willing to listen to them. I _do_ mean to give the impression that reviewers like the anonymous whiner and N3phtys, who choose to insult and complain about my writing instead of trying to help me improve it, are reviewers I can do without.

**19. Azula's Last Light**

I only ever said one thing to her, about what happened on the red night. One morning, three days after the cliffs. She'd slept over and joined me for a bath, in my suite's private washroom – a pastime I very much enjoyed, though it got neither of us especially clean – and we were drying off, heading back to my room wrapped in towels. She had just tucked hers in, wrung the last of the water from her hair. And before we left, I took her arm.

"Katara…" I blinked at her, briefly lost for words. I wasn't sure _why _the thought had occurred to me, why here, why now. We hadn't spoken a solemn word all morning. Maybe it was watching her, all brown sugar and white tea, as she'd lowered herself into the bath. Dressed in nothing but soap and steam. Maybe it was her skin, slick against mine; maybe it was the whorls of her fingers, the bones in her ankles, the lithe dimpled small of her back. One kiss a touch sweeter than the rest. I didn't know what, but there must have been _something _about her, that morning – something that made me want to say what I said.

"Do you think maybe, in a different world…if I weren't from the Fire Nation, and you weren't from the Water Tribe…if I weren't a princess, and you weren't a peasant…if you weren't dating the Avatar, and I wasn't a recovering psychopath…" Fot a second, I cracked a grin, somewhere between wan and wry. "If it were just you and me," I said, "and nothing else…do you think we could be in love?"

At first, she just looked at me. Didn't respond, just looked at me, blue eyes a shade darker than before. Then, she blinked, and again they shone; a gentle smile tugged at her lips. "Maybe."

It seemed she could always blindside me, in the end. She got me trusting her, and clipped my instincts like sparrows' wings; I'd always been good at reading people, but Katara proved herself the exception. She'd done it once before, in the asylum. Forced me to face what I was. She did it again, that day, and again I missed the signals—again, I hated myself for not having _seen_ it, the storm brewing in her eyes. The strain in her voice, the weight to her steps. She wasn't a bad liar, but she had a tell, everyone does – I didn't hear it, but the curtains made a sound, as she pulled them shut on us. Their rings scraped the rod. The shadows grew thick at my feet. There were signs, there were _signs_, but all I saw was her silhouette at the window. All I saw was the last sliver of light.

After our bath, we went for a walk. _I never saw the signs. _Hand in hand, we wandered through the gardens, under brick archways and through scattered groves. And we fell prey to the same sidetracks as always—namely, I ended up pinned to a tree, her kissing me for all she was worth. Not face-cradling, eyelash-flickering, easy-to-pull-back kissing. Not soft dry shut-lips kissing, light like summer rain. This was monsoon kissing, breathless, open-mouthed; this was twined-limbs, weak-knees, fistfuls-of-her-dress kissing, sending tingles through more than just my spine. The kind of kissing we usually kept to the hammock, veiled in willow reeds, or behind a pillar of a pavilion. Better yet, to one of our rooms. It felt odd to kiss her that way, to let _her_ kiss _me_ that way, in broad daylight – out there where anyone could pass by.

"Wait." A few minutes in, I took her by one shoulder, blinked into her eyes. Caught my breath, and flicked my gaze to the brick walkway above us. Built like a scaled-down viaduct, it bridged the gap between the palace and a multifloored pavilion – not one we used often, but still. "Shouldn't we, um…shouldn't we move?"

"It's fine." She reached up and ran her thumb along my lower lip, grinned when it came away wet. Clipped my instincts like sparrows' wings. "No one's used that pavilion in months. Who's going to come by now?"

_I never saw the signs._

Maybe she quivered against me, once or twice. But if she did it was faint, like a distant avalanche. Maybe she kissed with too much urgency, too much fever—but if she did, why would I complain? Maybe she was tense, but if she was I didn't notice it, because I was drowning in her tides. Going down and loving it, as much as I ever did with her. And who'd ever think to mention it, if they kiss you like they'll never kiss you again? Who would think to ask, _is this the last time? _

"Katara?"

I would find out later what she'd done. I hadn't known it – she hadn't _told_ me – but her friends had come by that morning, before I got up, before she slipped back into bed beside me. Like they did every now and again. She had said to them, _let's meet up at noon, in the pavilion by the bridge. There's something you've got to see. _

She _planned_ it.

That much I knew right away. That much I could tell. When she heard her name, in _his _voice – pale as plaster, weak with disbelief – she didn't turn. I snapped back like a rubber band, smacked my head against the tree; I blinked at her with wide eyes, and on the walkway so did they, but in hers I saw no surprise. Just the color leaving her face, slowly, slowly. Just a hard, cold misery, carved into her gaze as with a knife. She didn't start, she didn't jolt, she didn't whip her head around—just heard him call and let me go, gently. Looked at me with an impossible sadness in her eyes. I saw them glisten, glazed with almost-tears, and that was when I knew.

On the bridge, his stare narrowed to a scowl, black with anger that bled like a wound. With slit, wet eyes, he turned and strode back towards the palace, their friends parting for him like waves for a ship; not one of them followed. Just stood and stared at us, at _me. _Horrified. As if I didn't feel the same. "I'm sorry," she said in a whisper, not to him. To me, at first. Because _she planned it. _

"You—_meant_ this."

My tongue was numb – I was numb all over, skin caked in ice – but I choked out the words. Barely coherent, but she understood. Not a question. "I'm sorry."

"_Don't tell me you're sorry_!" It came out a shriek, broke the stunned silence. I shoved her, hard, and she stumbled back into the garden; hands fisted as if to strike, I swiped a sleeve over my mouth and spat, into the dirt around the tree. It didn't help. I could still taste her. "You—" The word rolled into a growl, an ugly hoarse sound far from human. A hot breath burst from my nose, licked with smoke. "You wanted to end it this bad?"

She shuddered. Gulped in a breath of her own. Suddenly, the floodgates snapped and tears ran down her cheeks, like finger-trails left in flour. "I couldn't—make myself do it—any other way."

Before I could answer, she spun and ran to the palace, calling his name. Shouting _wait, wait._ Crying _I'm sorry. _She said it to me, she said it to him, but he was the one she chased; he was the one she went after, the one she came back to, while I stood like stone there in the dirt. Numb, and alone. The others on the bridge left, the wind in the garden cooled. The sparrows fell silent in the trees. I stood like stone in the dirt, and he was her rising sun—the dawn she ran into, when she closed our curtains behind her.

The sliver of light disappeared. I was the room she left in shadows.


	20. Azula Tells

I do think it's fairly believeable, that everyone would blame Azula once they found out. In any case, it would follow the established tradition of the series, in which Katara is allowed to do and say all kinds of ridiculous shit without being held accountable.

Also, I apologize for the fact that this chapter is essentially one long monologue for Azula. She shouldn't be speaking at all, in the next few chapters, so I guess I'll make up for it then. And Y HALO THAR AZULA, TANX FOR TEH NAMEDROP! =D

**20. Azula Tells**

"Azula?"

Mother came in without knocking, again. But to be fair, no one had been knocking today; the price of sin, it seemed, was privacy. "What do you want?"

"Well, I just—"

"Are you here to tell me what an awful person I am?" I sat up and slid off my bed, looked her in the eyes. "That you knew I never deserved your trust? That I've always been a liar, and an ingrate, and you were all fools to believe I could change?"

"Azula—"

"No? Then you must be here to tell me I'm a monster, forcing myself on her like that. I mean, there must have been _something_ I did, right? Katara would _never _lie, not unless I _made_ her. She'd_ never_ betray Aang, unless I gave her no other choice. Maybe you don't know _what _it was I did – what I _could _have done – but you know I did something, because it's not her fault, so it must be mine. It always has to be mine." I felt my eyes slit as I spoke, bitter as black coffee. She didn't try to cut in. Just stood with her hands clasped, her face pale and sad. "If you are, don't bother. Zuko made sure I knew."

She drew in her breath. "I don't—"

"You don't believe that? You agree with Mai and Ty Lee? You think sure, she went along, but only out of _pity_ – only because she felt _bad_ for me, and when I kissed her I was too pathetic to push away? She felt _sorry_ for me, and she didn't want to _hurt_ me, so she picked up the charade to make me happy. Like playing house with a child. Her heart was never in it, just her sense of _duty_—just her _obligation_, to heal me, to keep me out of the asylum by pretending someone cared?" I spat the words with a sneer. "But that doesn't mean I'm off the hook. It's still not _Katara's_ fault – who could blame her for charity? – but I should've known better, right? Shouldn't have taken advantage of her. I knew all along her heart was too soft to say no, and if I were a decent human being, I wouldn't have guilt-tripped her into this."

"That's not why I—"

"Wait, wait. Maybe you think what her idiot brother thinks, and told _me _in no uncertain terms—that I was never interested in _her_. Only what she could do to Aang. I was toying with her, all that time, as a part of a plot to get him back. Now that I'm bitter and alone, I can't stand to bear witness to their happy little family, so I devised this nefarious scheme to break them up – because that's all I'm good at, isn't it? Plotting and scheming. Azula always lies."

"I'm here to see if you're okay."

She said it softly. Nearly too soft to hear. I almost plowed straight through it, so sure was I of her intent – but after a second I _did_ hear it, and it stopped me cold. I just sort of stood there and blinked. "Yeah," I said hoarsely, too weak to count as a snap. "I'm great. Can't you tell?"

I sat back down on the bed, legs gone to jelly all at once. She came and sat down next to me. "I know it must be hard," she said gently. As if she'd have liked to touch me – put her hand on my shoulder, maybe – but didn't dare. "Is there anything you need?"

I buried my head in my hands. "I need today," I mumbled, "not to have happened."

Mother didn't speak. Just sat silently, on the bed beside me, and after awhile I lifted my head; I didn't look at her, but I did look up, dragging my hands slowly down my face. I rested my elbows on my knees, my chin in my hands. Stared out at the tar-black night. Through my window, I saw no stars, no dappled fleck of moon – nothing but the endless night, regarding me with cool dark eyes.

"You know what she told me?" I said quietly, surprising myself even as I spoke. I hadn't meant to start talking to _her_, of all people—but somehow, it just happened. "She told me I didn't love her. When I told her to leave him, she told me I didn't love her—she said I didn't _know_ her, so I couldn't love her. Not like he does. She said she'd never leave him for me, because I couldn't give her what he does…because I didn't want all of her." All day, those words had been circling my brain, chasing themselves in ceaseless loops. _Was that why she did it? I didn't give her enough? _"Because I didn't love her."

In the windowpane, I could just barely see our reflections, two translucent ghosts trapped in the glass. Two pairs of yellow eyes, blinking back at me. "Do you?" she asked.

"Do I what?"

"Do you love her?"

Suddenly, my skin turned to steel. I could feel the plates of armor forming, blooming like black scales down my arms; when she said that, _do you love her_, something inside me closed. Disappeared and refused to come out. Without my willing it, I became a tightened fist, an eye fastened shut with a nail. "Just leave me alone," I said sharply, sparks flying from the metal on my tongue. "I was stupid to think you'd understand."

"But I _want_ to understand, Azula." A note of pleading entered her voice. "I wish you would talk to me."

"Fine." I don't know why I said it. I'd have been better off locked up, safe in my steel until she left—but like a cut cable, I snapped. I was so _tired _of her. So sick of her acting like she _knew_ me, like she _understood_; all she ever did was make things worse. "You want to understand me? You want to _talk_?"

"More than anything."

"All right. Let's talk about _love_." I got to my feet, not about to face her sitting down. Glared at her until she did the same_._ "When I saw you, coming home – after the asylum – it wasn't the first time since you left. I used to see you all the time. In mirrors, in dreams—shards of glass—in the shadows in my cell. You _haunted_ me, even when I didn't know you. When you were just the woman with yellow eyes, who no one else could see." With each word, I saw her face grow paler. Saw it crumple in on itself, like sheet of wax paper. "Did you know I wouldn't let her use my name? The way Katara tells it, you're best friends now, so you should. When she came and she called me by name, I said it wasn't mine—I hated myself that much. So much that I needed to be someone else. _Anyone_ else.

"But you—you'd show up and say it, every time. I couldn't stop you. It was always Azula this, Azula that; _Azula, you're so lucky, I'm so happy for you. She cares for you, Azula. I love you, Azula."_ I felt my lip curl, sick with the sourness of the words. "I couldn't stand it. Never believed it. And I told her so, I said—I hadn't done anything _worth_ loving, so it had to be a lie. Even when I didn't know you, I knew it was a lie. But she told me I was _wrong_, she said you don't have to _do_ anything – she said _love's not something you earn_, and for awhile, I was dumb enough to believe her. I actually _thought_—let myself _dare _to think—that might be true." I swallowed. "But it's not, is it? She lied to me. And so did you."

It didn't show on the outside – I was too numb, for it to show on the outside – but something like a smirk twitched under my skin. Katara wanted me to tell her. So what if she hadn't meant this way? "What do you mean, lied to you?" Mother said, her voice almost a whisper, her yellow eyes damp and dark. Like Katara did sometimes – like she had when she'd said _I'm sorry_ – she looked unfathomably sad. "I love you, Azula. I do."

I took a step back. Or less a step than a stumble, the reeling stagger of someone struck and struck hard; she couldn't have dealt a stronger blow. For a minute, every other blink hurled me back in time—to a room the color of blood, and a mirror like a boundless glass sea. "No."

"But—"

"_No! Don't lie to me!_" Where had I been, the last time I'd said that to her? On the floor in my cell? Shaking, stomach churning—thinking _I'll never hate anything so much as this woman, and all the sweetness on her tongue? _"I'm not _good enough_ for you. I'm not good enough for you, and I'm not good enough for her, and both of you have done _nothing_ but lie – you say it's not true, _she_ says it's not true, but _both of you_ left me because I'm not enough. There's always somebody better. Someone who's _earned_ it, because love _is_ something you earn, no matter what you try to say. Zuko earned yours, and that's why you—did what you did." I saw the last drop of blood drain from her face. Wished I could've enjoyed it more. "What if it had been me, Mother? Would you have done anything? Lost everything? Would you have bloodied your hands to save _my_ life?"

"Of course I would have," she said, the words cracked like a china plate. "I love you. It's true I was concerned for you, I was afraid—"

"Of me?"

"_For_ you. I was afraid you might…do this to yourself." She blinked into my eyes. "But I have always—_always_ loved you."

I looked at her. Met her gaze, wet with unshed tears. And there was a lot I could have done, I guess—I could have chosen to believe her. I could have written my own fairy-tale ending, where the princess gets everything she wants; I could have run to her, and burst out sobbing in her arms. Never let her let me go. I could have forgiven, could have forgotten. I could have summoned a current and stopped her heart. But in the end, there was no time to choose, before the black scales surfaced again – before they pushed through my skin and swallowed me, closed me up tight. Left me with only one thing to say.

"Then why can't I believe it?"


	21. Azula's Unbreakable Things

And here we have the last in the trio of "Azula eavesdrops" chapters. It was a bitch to write, but I think – I hope? – it came out well.

**21. Azula's Unbreakable Things**

Dawn cuts in like a knife, the morning after it breaks. Whatever _it_ is, you don't want to wake up when it's gone. I felt that feeling my first morning in the asylum, and when she did what she did I felt it again; my eyes opened to a dark room, an empty bed, and just as soon blinked shut. A lead weight lay on my chest. A dull ache pulsed in my head. Nothing seemed worth doing anymore, and the day didn't seem worth facing—I supposed no one would care much, if I just went back to sleep. No one would miss me, if I laid in bed all day. All day, all month, all year if I felt like it. It'd be like the asylum. Just me and the walls.

But I wasn't that person anymore. I couldn't just lie still forever. Eventually, I pushed my feet to the floor, and my hands through my hair; I went to my vanity and washed my face. Like nothing had changed, I got dressed, put my hair up in a knot. Slid in my golden pin. _There. Now you look like yourself._

I had thought I might go and get some breakfast, instead of waiting in my room. It was early still, and no one else would be eating yet, so it'd be awhile before someone brought mine. But as it happened, on my way to the kitchen I got sidetracked, when I caught the sound of conversation behind a door. _Don't do this again, _I told myself firmly, even as my steps slowed to a halt. I blinked at the source of the voices, a windowed wooden door that led out onto a balcony. A brocade curtain hung over it, to keep the light out of the hall, but the sunrise bled in under its fringe. _Just keep going. You're _better_ than this, you shouldn't be—_

"And I just…left. I didn't know what else to say."

_What's Mother doing up so early? _I frowned and edged closer to the curtain, qualms dissolving like smoke. _Who is she _talking _to? _

"Well, it's a good thing she told you, in any case." The second voice was unmistakably Katara's. Her sigh was unmistakable, too – long and soft, and just slightly dry. "I have a feeling she knew that wasn't what I meant, when I said 'you should tell her.' But I guess beggars can't be choosers."

_They're talking about me! _Somewhere between outraged and intrigued, I glued my ear to the curtain, without another thought to my dignity. If they were going to discuss me behind my back, I had a _right_ to eavesdrop. They were practically _asking_ me to. "I feel awful," Mother said quietly. "She seemed so…so _angry._ And so hurt."

I could hear the sad smile in Katara's voice. "She loves you, you know."

"Yes." Mother let out her breath. "I know."

"And she knows you love her. It's hard for her to admit it, but she knows."

"Do you really think so?"

"I know so." With every word, a scowl dug deeper into my brow, indignant beyond belief. It was all I could do not to throw back the curtain, burst through the door, and tell them exactly what I felt for them both – which, at that moment, was something very far from _love_. "I told her as much myself. She created everything she saw in the asylum, consciously or not—it all came from somewhere inside her. So if she saw you telling her you loved her, that means that somewhere inside her, she believes it's true."

"I hope you're right." The longer she spoke, the more Mother sounded wistful, almost weak. Like she hadn't had much sleep. "I'm not saying we had a—_good_ relationship, in the past. Far from it. It was a constant battle, with her, and she could be _infuriating _– but that never meant I didn't love her." She was silent a moment, her words hanging like paper lanterns in the dawn. "She was my baby. I carried her, I brought her into the world—my eyes were the first thing she ever saw. How could she think I wouldn't love her?"

I'd always thought it was just something she said to me. A lie she told to soothe me, blind me to what she really felt. She was afraid of me, so she _had_ to say she loved me, for fear of what I'd do if she didn't – but why would she lie to Katara? I'd always thought, if I came upon them like this, I would hear her say _why did you bring her back? _I'd thought she would say, _she's a monster. _I'd thought she would say, _you can't fix what's wrong with her. _

At least, that's what I _thought_ I'd thought. Wasn't it?

"Well, this _is_ Azula we're talking about. It's in her nature to be difficult." Again, I heard the half-smile on her lips. Bittersweet as dark chocolate. The kind of smile I used to see a lot, when she first came to see me. "It's our job to love her for it."

Mother didn't answer, at first. I pressed my back to the wall and slid slowly down, down to the floor; suddenly, my knees were too weak to stand. "It really bothers her," she said at last, from what felt like far away. "What you said. About—about her not loving you."

A shudder coursed through Katara's breath. "I know. I shouldn't have told her."

"Shouldn't have told her what? The truth?"

"No. Yes. I don't know." I buried my head in my hands. Felt my throat close when her voice dropped, as though its weight were a toxin in the air. "I'm so fed up with everyone _blaming_ her, telling me it's not my fault – it _is_ my fault, as much as it is hers, because I more than let it happen. I could have said no to her, when she kissed me the first time. I had a thousand chances to end it after. But I didn't, and not because I pitied her, and not because she scared me. Because I wanted it." Another sigh slid through her, borne away on the breeze. "But I knew it wasn't going to work. No matter how much we wanted it to. She _doesn't_ love me, she—she wants to, but she can't. How could she, when she can't even accept that you love her? We can't have a life together, we can't make a family – not when she hasn't even figured out her own life, or made peace with her own family. Maybe I shouldn't have told her, but it's true. She isn't ready. It wasn't right."

Dawn seeped in between the curtain's tassels, throwing long, bright beams across the hall. When I swept a hand across them, they rippled over my skin; when I pulled back my arm, they hadn't changed. I considered unbreakable things. Turtleduck shells. Prison bars. Maybe light was unbreakable, too. "She'll understand. In her own time."

"I know. I know." I could almost hear her rake her hands through her hair, like she always did when she was stressed. "I just—I hate not knowing what to _do_."

"Let me tell you something about Azula." There was a tenderness to Mother's tone, when she said that – a warmth I hadn't expected. I'd always thought, if she ever said those words, they'd be meant as a warning. "Sometimes, there's nothing you _can_ do. Sometimes you just have to let her be."

Katara sort of laughed then, a soft chuckle bubbling up in her throat. I didn't know what to think. I just sat and passed my hand through the light again and again, watching the bars roll over my fingers. "I think I'm going to talk to Zuko today. Get it over with."

"That's good. And I wouldn't worry about it, either. I think you have the right idea."

"I hope so." Katara paused, and I could picture her pressing her lips together, her eyes flicking up to the sky. "I mean…I don't want her to waste her life, you know? There's so much more she could be doing now, instead of lying around waiting for me. I didn't convince them to let her out of the asylum so she could make this palace into a new one."

_So what? She's going to talk to Zuko? About me? _I leaned close to the door, ear cocked, brow furrowed. But they didn't mention it again. For awhile they were quiet, and I heard nothing but the faint twitter of birds; after a minute, I began to pick at my nails, if only to distract myself from one burgeoning, disturbing thought. _She was my baby. How could she think I wouldn't love her? _

"May I ask you something?" Mother said eventually. "While we're here?"

"Of course."

Somewhere in the gardens, a mourning dove called. I peeled a stripe of chiffon skin from my thumb. "Why did you end it the way you did?"

"Mmm." Katara sounded sad again, that dark-chocolate smile haunting her words. I left my nails alone to listen. "Well, I didn't want to. I thought at first – when I realized it wasn't going to work – that I could just tell her _it's over_, and we could go back to being friends; that way, Aang would never have to know. I'd never have to deal with…begging him to forgive me." She swallowed, as if there were gravel in her throat. "But I couldn't do it. I tried, and tried, and I couldn't make the words come out; I looked at her and I thought _maybe we _can _make it work, just for one more day. _I thought, _maybe I can wake up with her just one more time. _Until I realized I was never going to end it, unless they knew and I _had_ to." Her voice broke. "I wanted to stay with her too much."

I didn't listen much to what they said, after that. Didn't have a choice. After that, a sound like the ocean filled my ears, and refused to dissipate; I hoped I would hear it, if they got up to leave, but it was very possible that I wouldn't. That they'd find me here, curled up on the floor. Lost in the rush of the surf. Thinking about unbreakable light.


	22. Azula's Sentence

**22. Azula's Sentence**

The night after I eavesdropped on her – this time without getting caught, or giving myself away – Katara came to my room. Unlike everyone else, she knocked. And I said _what? _not knowing it was her, and not knowing what I would've said if I'd known; she came in and it was like a glimpse of sun, after two days shut in a cave. I had to blink at the sight of her face. For half a second, I felt a mad surge of longing, an ache for her so fierce it left me breathless—but no sooner did it surface than I swallowed it, a sandpaper pill. _It's over, _said the voice in my head, as she shut the door behind her. _It's over. Don't show her you care. _

"Hey." As if it weren't enough, just _seeing_ her, she had to go and say _that._ Bitterness struck me like an open hand. "Can I sit down?"

I said nothing. Didn't nod, or shake my head. I wasn't _angry_ with her – how could I be, after that morning? – but I couldn't speak to her, couldn't even look at her, for fear I'd say something I'd regret. Something like _I need you. _Something like _I want to wake up with you just one more time. _"Okay," she said slowly, seating herself at the foot of my bed. Curled up at the head, knees-to-chest like an egg, I stared not at her, but at my feet. "I'll take that as a yes."

For what seemed a long time, she didn't speak. I counted the brocade bayleaves on my bedding. Eventually, I heard her sigh, and from the corner of one eye saw her shoulders slump. "All right, don't talk to me," she said. "I didn't think you would. But at least—at least _listen_ to me, okay? There's something you need to know."

I didn't answer that. And I didn't look up at her, not once. She waited a moment, as if I might change my mind, and all of those months might melt away and things might be the way they were, before we danced in the dusty ballroom and I decided to make her mine—but still, I said nothing. "We think it might be best," she said, without saying who she meant by _we_, "if you and I…didn't see each other, for awhile." She swallowed hard. "So I—I'm going to go home. And you…"

I almost glanced up when I heard her say that, or rather, when I heard what she _didn't_ say. When her voice trailed off after _you._ '_And you' what?_ I nearly demanded, just catching the words in my throat. _And you're going back to the asylum, because no one else wants to deal with you? And you're going to spend your life in this room, staring at the walls? And you've got no purpose anymore, so you might as well slit your own throat now? _

"Look, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. You can stay here if you want. But I thought it might be better, than just leaving you here at loose ends, so…" Again, she swallowed, like she was trying to get up the nerve to deliver my sentence. "Do you remember what you told me…about what happened while I was gone? What you heard at the council meeting?" I had to nail my gaze to the blanket, to stop it jerking up at her. _There's no way._ "Well, we've been discussing it. Zuko and I. And he doesn't like admitting it, but he thinks you're right – he needs to take an aggressive stance towards the loyalists, if he's going to address the threat they pose. He's already assembled a strong team. But he's met with generals for weeks now, looking for a leader, and none of them seemed…quite right."

She paused and I felt her eyes on me, waiting for me to react. I didn't give her the satisfaction. "What was it he said you told him? To get someone persuasive, but intimidating?" _He thought I was talking about myself. _At the time, I hadn't meant to—or I didn't think I had. _Was I? _"Like I said, he doesn't like it, but he agrees. We also thought it wouldn't hurt if that…_someone _knew the loyalists, well enough to see through their eyes. To predict what they'll do and when they'll do it. To know what their weakest points are." _There's no way. _"I think you know where I'm going with this."

I was absolutely sure she wasn't serious. It was just like I'd said to Mother, all those months ago. _Maybe you think he's _just that forgiving_, but believe me, he's not. He wouldn't want my help if his life depended on it. _"Now, if you were speaking to me," she went on, "you'd probably accuse me of lying. You'd say _he'd never trust me with that._ Am I right?" I could hear her grin flicker to life. She knew me well enough to know that answer. "And I'll admit it – I've cashed in the last of my favors. Given the situation—" the smile dropped from her voice "—and given that I _told_ him he had to blame me, too, Zuko's not exactly thrilled with me. But we're still friends, and I still have some pull with him. If I say I trust you, he's willing to give you a chance."

She gave me another second to reply, if I chose. Not that I was going to. Not that I thought _she_ thought I was going to, seeing as she wasn't stupid. But if it was in my nature to be difficult, it was in hers to be patient; Katara never gave up. "Actually, it wasn't just me. Your mother vouched for you, too."

That was when I understood. When I knew, for sure, that she wasn't kidding. She and Zuko were friends, sure, but friendship only went so far – she could only have so much clout with him, especially after what she'd done. But Mother was a different story. I remembered how she'd shut him up with a word, during our back-and-forth at breakfast. _He'd never say _no_ to her. _

Which, of course, left me reeling for an entirely new reason. _Mother vouched for me?_

"If you want the job," she said after another moment, "be in the plaza tomorrow, at dawn. There'll be an airship to take you to the base. The operation is being run out of the Earth Kingdom, since that's where the insurgence is worst; you'll find the rest of the team already there." It'd been _years_ since I'd been on an airship. The last time I'd flown, it had been on the bison, when she brought me home from the beach. "I know that's not much time to decide. But if it means anything, I…" Her voice faded, from soft to softer. From a ship to a raft to a paper boat, washing up on my shore. "I think this could be really good for you."

Her gaze laid heavy on my head. She said nothing else, but she watched me, while I sat still and looked down and tried to maintain—just tried to make sense of it, the idea of _doing_ something with my life. I'd never thought they'd let me. It'd been so long, too long, since I had known what it was not to feel restless, or useless, or pent-up like a tiger in a cage. So long since I'd felt I might_ matter_, to someone other than her. It was too much to process, all at once, but she didn't read that in my silence. She didn't know that, staring into the bayleaves on my bedspread, I was watching the world unfold again.

"Is this what you _want_?" she burst out, suddenly, her voice soaring in a surge to warship pitch. I squeezed my eyes shut, almost reflexively, but I could picture the look on her face. "Is this how you want it—_us_ to end? You might not see me for months, you might not see me for _years_, and—and after everything, after _everything_—you're just going to leave it like this? Freezing me out?" I felt the bed creak as she stood, lurched to her feet like a door blown loose from its hinges. She nearly choked on each word. "I didn't like what I did, Azula, but I had my reasons for doing it. And I'm trying to make things _better_ for you. The least you could do is—is _look_ at me."

I wanted to say,_ I know. _I wanted to say, _I don't want to end it this way. _I wanted to say, _it's not that I'm freezing you out; it's that if I say anything, it's going to be 'I miss you so much I can't breathe.' It's going to be 'I don't want to go anywhere, unless you're going with me.'_

But I never said a word. I couldn't. I didn't speak, or move, or so much as open my eyes – until, somewhere beyond their lids, I heard my door bang shut.


	23. Azula Takes Flight

I thought about including a few lines of Azula's 'inner monologue' on the way down to the plaza – something to the effect of "I knew I wasn't going to betray everyone's trust and use this opportunity to completely fuck the world over because _." But then I decided not to. Because I figured that if, by this point in the narrative, if you aren't _already_ convinced that she's not going to betray everyone's trust and use this opportunity to completely fuck the world over, I've failed to do my job as an author, and no inner monologue is going to fix that now.

Anyway! Here we are at the end of another journey, the last one for now. This is the final chapter of _Satellite,_ to which there will be no sequel. Thanks, to those of you who reviewed; it's been a crazy ride.

**23. Azula Takes Flight**

The servants had lain out my armor, on the table in my dressing room. Not the armor I'd once worn – it would be kind of pathetic, if I hadn't grown since I was fourteen – but close enough. Black plates, leather laces, gold accents glinting when I moved. Layers of wine-red broadcloth underneath. I caught my reflection's gaze, blinking back from the full-length mirror on the wall; I touched the glass, and so did she. _The girl with yellow eyes._

No. No. The red room was still the red room, but its power had thinned like winter sun; someone had swept up the shards of glass. Wearing what I had worn didn't make me what I had been. I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again the ghost had gone – it was just me, standing there, in my armor and my lipstick and still with my hair hanging loose. _Right. _I'd wanted to be alone this morning, to set my mind straight before I left. I'd sent my handmaids away. So I'd have to fix my hair myself, in the waning slice of time before dawn—before the sun broke over the lip of the caldera, on the first day of the rest of my life.

Things were quiet, before sunrise. So quiet I could hear the birds sing outside. So quiet that I heard her, before I saw her face; Mother's steps were soft, but I heard them from the hall. When the curtains parted, at the other end of the room, I saw her slip inside. I paused, comb in my hand, as she came close. I didn't say anything, and I'd like to say I didn't even turn, but for half a second I did – just once, to be sure she was really there. Standing behind me, pondwater still. Not smiling, exactly, but not frowning. Just looking back at me.

She didn't speak, and neither did I, but I didn't tell her to leave. Which was something all on its own. I went back to combing my hair, only half-watching her in the mirror, toying with the question of why she'd come. _She's probably just here to lecture me, _I thought. _One last talking-to before I leave. She's going to tell me be good, work hard, don't backslide on us now. She's going to tell me she loves me, one more time. _

But she didn't say any of that. She didn't say anything at all. And when she reached out, to take the comb mid-stroke, for some reason I just let her. My hand fell to my side, slow like pushing a spoon through honey, like the air had gone liquid all at once; gently, she began to card the comb through my hair. Still, I didn't stop her. Should have, maybe, but didn't. It actually felt nice.

I couldn't remember when I'd last let Mother touch me, even indirectly like this. I couldn't remember why it had been such a big deal. Like always, she smelled of soap and sandalwood, and I found it wasn't such a bad smell after all; in the mirror, she kept her eyes on her work, so I could watch her without catching them. Not that I watched her for long. The rhythm of the comb was soothing, like a hand rocking a cradle, and after a minute I felt my mind drift away. Eventually, I closed my eyes and let out my breath, dropped what remained of my guard.

I blinked when I heard her set down the comb. She pulled my hair into a knot and tied it, good and tight with a red satin ribbon. Then she picked up my pin, waiting on the table, winking in the lanternlight – tucked it in almost tenderly, as if my reflection were a portrait, and that pin the last daub of paint. Again, I blinked into my own eyes. I touched the mirror's surface, expecting to taste something bitter, a jolt of resentment or regret. Looking for the girl with yellow eyes. Finding no one but me.

And Mother behind me, still silent. She never said a word. But she did smile at me, before she left.

I walked down to the plaza by myself. They'd offered the palanquin, but I didn't want it; I didn't need anyone to carry me. Besides, it was a long walk, through the city, up into the cliffs, down the mountain on the other side. It would give me more time to clear my head. When I left the palace, it was still twilight, the first sliver of sun biding its time. As I wound my way up the wall of the caldera, I saw the darkness ebb slowly, from violet to lavender – I saw gold slide in a stripe over the horizon, spreading pale fingers across the sky. The stars, like little flames, went out with the breath of day.

By the time I reached the plaza, dawn was in full force. And the airship was there, just like she had said, docked on the platform by the sea. There was no one outside it, though, on the catwalk or the ladder to the hatch; I climbed the steps and found myself alone. Until, about a minute later – when I'd had time to glance around, and fold my arms, and let a frown begin to tug at my brow – I heard the _clang_ of feet on the ladder's rungs. _It's about time. Would it be so much to ask for some pr—_

My train of thought suddenly crashed. "You came."

I hadn't thought she would. After what she'd said last night – after what I _hadn't _said, last night – I had assumed that would be it. _You might not see me for months, you might not see me for __years, _she'd said, but here she was anyway; she swung down smiling from the ladder, the wind tossing her hair. "Of course I came," she said, as if last night had never been. "I wouldn't let you go without saying goodbye."

I didn't know what to say to that. There were a thousand things I _wanted_ to say, maybe even things I _should've_ said, but none of them would pass my lips. Instead, I just stared at her, until she tried again. "Are you excited?"

"Yeah. I guess."

It felt like there was a coin stuck in my throat. I swallowed, but it wouldn't go down. I blinked at her, into her tourmaline-blue eyes, and she blinked back at me; again, a breeze blew in from the ocean, swirled her hair about her face. She pushed it back. "Azula—"

"Will he forgive you?"

I don't know why I said it. It wasn't as if I _cared._ Or at least, I hadn't thought I did. After all, wouldn't it be better for me, if he didn't want her back? Maybe we could be together, then. Maybe then she could be mine always, and I'd never have to taste him on her lips; maybe then I could learn to love her. I should have wanted that, for her to say _no_, for her to say _never_—but—she would be sad. I'd have to see it in her eyes. I'd have to watch her cry, or worse, try _not_ to cry, hear the tears thick in her voice even as she smiled. She'd have to bear that weight, that loss on her back, for the rest of her life – and she wouldn't be _happy_, without him. I knew it like I knew the sun would rise.

She had said to me, _I want you to be happy. _Didn't I owe her the same?

"Eventually." Katara answered after a long pause, the hush of wonder in her voice. As if she couldn't believe I'd said it, either. And there _was _sadness in her eyes, in that answer, but also hope; she let out a long sigh, and very nearly smiled, and I knew that she had hope. "Not right now. But eventually."

Another moment passed. I blinked at her, and she blinked at me. Then, all of a sudden, she burst out and seized me in a hug—just flung her arms around me tight as she could, crushing the breath from my chest, gluing her head to my shoulder. I could feel my armor dig into her, but she didn't care. She wouldn't let me go. "I already miss you," she whispered, the words tumbling out in a halting shudder. "_So_ much. And I'm going to miss you every day, every _minute_ of every day, until I see you again—and—and I love you, whether it's as a friend or…something else. Whatever you are, whatever _we_ are, I love you. I won't ever regret knowing you, or doing anything we did—and I'm going to be here for you, no matter what. Don't forget that, okay? No matter where you go, no matter what you do—_promise_ me—you won't let yourself forget that."

Even when she gulped herself silent, choking on tears that speckled my shoulderplate, she didn't pull away. She went on holding me, so I slid my arms around her, and let myself breathe into her hair—closed my eyes and inhaled her, the lilac lotion on her skin. The flutter of her heart against my chest. "Thank you."

I realized I'd never said that to her. After everything she'd done. I'd never said _thank you for bringing me here, for carrying me all this time; _I'd never said _thank you for giving me a chance. For sticking it out when things were hard, when I _made_ them hard—for not giving up on me, when everyone else said you should. Thank you for saving my life. _

Maybe I should've said those things, all of them – but I didn't, _couldn't_ without falling apart, and I didn't need to. She understood. "Hey, no problem," she said, sort of weakly, as she pulled back and wiped her eyes. "You made my life interesting, you know? I guess—I'll just have to find a new project, now." She flashed a faint smile. "You think I can find somebody crazier than you?"

"I think I'd be insulted if you did."

She laughed and shook her head. For a moment longer, she looked at me, still with that wet sheen to her eyes—I thought she might say something, but she didn't have the chance. Behind her, a pair of boots _clanged_ halfway down the ladder, and a helmeted head appeared from the hatch. Called down to us, something about needing to take off. I wasn't really listening.

But she must've been, because she caught me in another hug, not as long as the first but just as tight. For once – maybe for the first time – I didn't have to think to hug her back. "Fly safe, lightning bug," she said into my ear. "Write me soon."

It was probably a good thing, that she never said _goodbye. _If she had, I wouldn't have gone.

When the airship took off, I stood on the catwalk, one hand clinging to a metal pole. Wind whipping through the loose locks of my hair. I wouldn't spend the whole trip there, obviously, but I wanted to watch the plaza slip away. To catch a last glimpse of the land, bathed in sunrise, before the ocean swallowed it whole. I needed to see her disappear. So I stood there, looking down on the world, as we sailed higher and she grew smaller, smaller all the time—until she was a dandelion seed, flickering in the breeze. Flashing, and dancing, and finally floating away.


End file.
